Deinstitutionalisation
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Deinstitutionalisation is the process of replacing long-stay psychiatric hospitals with less isolated community mental health services for those diagnosed with a mental disorder or developmental disability. In the late 20th century, it led to the closure of many psychiatric hospitals, as patients were increasingly cared for at home, in halfway houses and clinics, in regular hospitals, or not at all.
The former St Elizabeth's Hospital in 2006, closed and boarded up. Located in Washington D.C., the hospital had been one of the sites of the Rosenhan experiment in the 1970s.
Vienna's Narrenturm—German for "fools' tower"—was one of the earliest buildings specifically designed for mentally ill people. It was built in 1784.
St. Loman's Hospital, Mullingar, Ireland, an infamous psychiatric hospital.
The water tower of Park Prewett Hospital in Basingstoke, Hampshire. The hospital was redeveloped into a housing estate after its closure in 1997.
Lunatic asylum
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The lunatic asylum, insane asylum or mental asylum was an institution where people with mental illness were confined. It was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital.
Social alienation was one of the main themes in Francisco Goya's masterpieces, such as The Madhouse (above).
Eastern State Hospital was the first psychiatric institution to be founded in the United States.
Dr. Philippe Pinel at the Salpêtrière, 1795 by Tony Robert-Fleury. Pinel ordering the removal of chains from patients at the Paris asylum for insane women.
The joint counties' lunatic asylum, erected at Abergavenny, 1850