Refuge of Cure or Care

The Sensory Dimensions of Confinement at the Worcester State Hospital for the Insane

Inbunden, Engelska, 2021

Av Madeline Kearin Ryan

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In A Refuge of Cure or Care: The Sensory Dimensions of Confinement at the Worcester State Hospital for the Insane, Madeline Kearin Ryan analyzes the therapy model of the nineteenth-century asylum. Because the five senses were believed to provide a direct conduit into a person’s mental condition, the curative force of the hospital was thought to reside in its command over sensory experience. Ryan examines how the institution was designed to target each of the five senses as a mode of therapy, and conversely, how that well-intentioned design materialized in the haphazard realm of institutional practice. In doing so, Ryan seeks to reconcile the disjuncture between the benevolent promise of the asylum model and its ultimate failure in a way that captures the complex power dynamics and heterogeneity of actors within the institution.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2021-05-18
Mått164 x 228 x 20 mm
Vikt549 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor234
FörlagBloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN9781793643810

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Amerikas historia inom Historia och arkeologi
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Chapter 1: “A State of Conscious and Permanent Visibility”: Sight as an Instrument of Cure and ControlChapter 2: “As Syllable from Sound”: The Sonic Dimensions of ConfinementChapter 3: The Smell of the Insane: Disciplining the Olfactory Domain Chapter 4: Dirty Bread, Forced Feeding, and Tea Parties: The Uses and Abuses of FoodChapter 5: “Curious Relics” and “Drafty Corridors”: The Material World of the Asylum

Ryan explores the history of asylums and mental health confinement as illustrated by the Worcester State Hospital (WSH) and its 19th-century creation as a facility to address insanity as a curable disease. Woven through Ryan's text are references to experiences of patients, administrators, and physicians as recorded in archival sources, echoing the challenges confronted by the institution while offering nuanced perspective. Insanity was perceived, in part, as a disease of civilization; WSH's goal was to create a soothing and nurturing atmosphere for therapeutic treatment. The facility was designed to encourage healing through positive encounters mediated by sensory experiences of sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste, offering the patient a stable and pleasant environment and routine. Ryan also reviews the realities WSH confronted including overcrowding; the steady increase in the population of the incurable, which eventually overwhelmed the institution; and underfunding, which made it impossible to meet envisioned goals. Descriptions of the material design of WSH, responses of patients to the "optical trickery" of the scenery created for them, and sometimes abusive control exercised over patients to sustain an artificial routine add depth to this portrait of the challenges inherent to empathetic care, contributing detail to the history of psychiatric treatment in theory and practice. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals. Students in two-year technical programs.