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PubMed1997

The pauper insane of Leicester in 1844.

In 1844 the Poor Law Commissioners followed up a dispute with the Guardians of Leicester Union regarding the care of Pauper Lunatics by appointing Dr Samuel Hitch, an Assistant Poor Law Commissioner, to survey the treatment and condition of the pauper insane in Leicester and Birmingham Workhouses. At Leicester he exceeded his brief and surveyed the 13 insane on outdoor relief, 29 in the workhouse and 23 in the asylum. As such it is one of the earliest surveys of an area. This paper describes the dispute, the report and considers its aftermath.

Almshouses↗
PubMed2003

The new Poor Law guardians and the administration of insanity in East London, 1834-1844.

One of the main aims of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was to impose national consistency of practice in poor relief. Central guidance was designed to produce uniformity in guardians' policies on dealing with the insane. This study of the administration of insanity in the eastern metropolis in the first decade after the Act demonstrates that the new boards of guardians were as culturally distinctive in their style of administration of the new Poor Law as the parishes had been under the old regime. A complex interplay of personality, politics, and class determined the corporate culture of individual boards.

Almshouses↗
PubMed1994

A life apart: the experience of women and the asylum practice of Charles Doherty at British Columbia's Provincial Hospital for the Insane, 1905-15.

Much of the study completed on psychiatry's treatment of women, has, understandably, focused on periods when the profession was particularly interested in female insanity. This article examines the asylum lives of women when their treatment was not of particular interest. During the 10-year period that Dr. Charles Edward Doherty was head of British Columbia's Provincial Hospital for the Insane, women were excluded from the reforms that characterized his tenure. Instead, women's experiences were shaped largely by the care of nurses and the atmosphere of the ward itself. On the ward, nurses and patients interacted to interpret asylum policy. In the absence of directed intervention, the informal psychiatry of ward life is clearly visible through the case files of patients, and is shown to be as shaped by patient resistance, compliance, and influence as it was by the dictates of the medical superintendent.

Canada↗
PubMed1993

[The Quebec asylum and the obstacles to medicalizing insanity (1845-1890)].

In 1845, the first true asylum for the mentally insane was founded at Beauport. Despite appearances and in spite of what some recent historians have claimed, the process of the medicalization of the insane encountered numerous obstacles in Québec including the private ownership of asylums, the weak role of the state, and also problems with the management of these institutions. Indeed, the asylum did not become a medical institution until 1890. This article outlines the obstacles met in this process, noting the marginal role of physicians and the general lack of what may be termed clinical psychiatry.

Canada↗
PubMed2003

[My insanity in the year 1783].

The aim of this paper is twofold: to defend the validity of the manic-depressive psychosis as a disease entity and to make an incursion into the history of psychiatry. The two intentions meet as far as the recognition of a clinical case straight through space and time supports the ontological status of a disease entity. An autobiographical work from 1801 "My insanity in the year 1783" written by the Danish vicar C.S. Andresen, who lived from 1760 to 1832 is briefly summed up. Andresen tells that he as a young student of divinity made a journey from the small town Rørvig in Zeeland to his then place in Copenhagen. The weather was intolerably hot, the coach was uncomfortable, the landscape deserted and empty-and just in the hardships the most unhappy and deplorable event happened: He faced the gruesome truth that he was deprived of the most precious gift of his Creator, his reason and faculties. A fellow passenger brought him to an inn where he literally ran up the walls alternately in high spirits and in deep dispair. When he arrived in Copenhagen he was blead, probably by a surgeon, but later that day admitted to King Frederik's Hospital where he was treated with bleds and leechs and baths. However, as the illness dragged on he was according to his own will accompanied by his custodian to his parental home in the Isle of Bornholm where he recovered while nursed by his mother and mother's mother who themselves had suffered from periodical melancholy when they were young. He completed his academic studies and became a highly respected scholar and vicar in the isle of Funen - but almost twenty years after his recovery he was made to suffer the humiliation that he - a true representative of the Age of Enlightment and rationalistic theologician - was suspected to have invoted his insanity by a sinful life in his youth. Thus his work may be regarded as a defensive pamphlet written at a time when a neutral and clinical view of mental diseases had given place to a moralistic and religious concept. The case serves as a modification of the general assumption that psychotic patients in "the classic age of confinement" under all circumstances were brutally treated and locked up. Even the fluent and subjective style is charming and reminds the Danes of Johannes Ewald (1743-81) and perhaps - were it to be translated - the English of Lawrence Sterne (1713-68). Maybe the booklet of just 75 pages is worthy of a translation?

Autobiographies as Topic↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The psychiatric asylum in Bnei-Brak and "The Society for the Help of the Insane," 1929-1939.

The article explores the activity of the Bnei-Brak psychiatric asylum and "The Society for the Help of the Insane" in the years 1929-1939 and its role in the development of mental health care in mandatory Palestine. Based on archival materials from the municipal archive of Tel-Aviv-Jaffa and the Israeli State Archive, as well as on the Hebrew daily press, the article concentrates on the administrative, the medical and the political aspects of the Bnei-Brak asylum and on the activities of "The Society for the Help of the Insane" discussing the central problems of the psychiatric field and the mentally ill people in the country during the reviewed period.

History, 20th Century↗
PubMed1983

Hospitalization length of insanity acquittees.

Used step-wise multiple regression procedures to predict length of hospitalization of 225 defendants acquitted by reason of insanity in New York state. Of the 21 variables considered, only 9 (severity of offense, sex, marital status, days prior imprisonment, homicide offense, days previous civil hospitalization, educational level, race, number of victims) contributed to the significance of the regression equation. However, these accounted for but 11% of the observed variance.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Insanity and filicide: women who murder their children.

A mother who murders her child challenges the empathic skills of evaluating clinicians. In this chapter, original research, supplemented by detailed case histories, compares women adjudicated criminally responsible for the murders of their children with those adjudicated not guilty by reason of insanity.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Incompetency and insanity: feasibility of community evaluation and treatment.

In order to examine the feasibility of doing more sanity and competency evaluations and treatment on an outpatient basis rather than at a state hospital, we gave a feasibility questionnaire to 288 CMHC and state hospital administrators and treatment staff members. The respondents indicated that, given enhanced community evaluation and treatment programs for forensic clients, (a) 41 percent of the sanity evaluations and 45 percent of the competency evaluations done at the hospital could be done in local communities, (b) 35 percent to 38 percent of the clients found incompetent could be treated in local communities, and (c) 39 percent to 50 percent of the clients found insane could be released to outpatient treatment six months earlier than presently. Other findings indicated several specific improvements needed in the community mental health system before it can properly handle more forensic clients.

Antisocial Personality Disorder↗
PubMed1980

Scientific thought and the boundary of insanity and criminal responsibility.

The insanity defence is considered in terms of the operation of incommensurable scientific and legal discourses, a dualism which in turn is held to reflect individualist values. This analysis is used to explain both the recurring nature of medico-legal controversy and the historical results of the defence in Victorian England.

Criminal Psychology↗
PubMed2003

[Insanity defense in post-traumatic stress disorder].

We report the forensic psychiatric evaluation of a 40 year old Iraqi who suffers from a posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She committed multiple non violent shopliftings. We mention criteria for a possible causal relationship between the PTSD and the crimes and discuss, why we affirm a insanity defense in this case.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

"Idiots, infants, and the insane": mental illness and legal incompetence.

Prior to the second world war, most persons confined in insane asylums were regarded as legally incompetent and had guardians appointed for them. Today, most persons confined in mental hospitals (or treated involuntarily, committed to outpatient treatment) are, in law, competent; nevertheless, in fact, they are treated as if they were incompetent. Should the goal of mental health policy be providing better psychiatric services to more and more people, or the reduction and ultimate elimination of the number of persons in the population treated as mentally ill?

Deinstitutionalization↗
PubMed1982

Detention and rearrest rates of persons found not guilty by reason of insanity and convicted felons.

The authors compared 42 men and 8 women who had been found not guilty by reason of insanity with a group of subjects who had been convicted of a felony (matched in criminal offenses, age, education, marital status, previous arrests, and sex). They found that the acquitted subjects spent significantly less time in the hospital than the matched subjects spent in prison. They also found that about the same number of acquitted subjects who had been released from the hospital were rearrested as were control subjects who had been released from prison. Many more acquitted subjects were rehospitalized than were released control subjects. There appears to have been a change in detention patterns after a switch to the American Law Institute rule and a greater role for the Department of Mental Hygiene in acquittees' hospitalizations.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

The insanity defense: a tale of two cities.

The M'Naghten case and the Hinckley matter are in some ways remarkably similar. The attempted assassination of a ruling figure, the public discomfort with the insanity defense, and problems in the application of the legal rules characterized both. An explosion of media criticism occurred in 1843, as it did in 1982. The English ultimately handled the M'Naghten case in a dispassionate manner that determined Anglo-American law for more than a century and provided the basic law by which Hinckley was tried. Fears expressed in 1843 were never realized; the final chapters of the Hinckley case remain to be written.

District of Columbia↗
PubMed1986

Posttraumatic stress disorder as an insanity defense: medicolegal quicksand.

A growing awareness of posttraumatic stress disorder has led to recent use of the disorder as a legal defense against criminal responsibility for both violent and nonviolent crimes. Diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder is difficult because the symptoms are mostly subjective, often nonspecific, usually well publicized, and, therefore, relatively easy to imitate. Accurate psychiatric testimony in such cases requires diligent searching for collateral sources of information. The authors argue that the insanity defense is appropriate only in the rare instance that a dissociative episode related to posttraumatic stress disorder directly leads to criminal activity.

Criminal Psychology↗
PubMed1988

Court-mandated community outpatient treatment for persons found not guilty by reason of insanity: a five-year follow-up.

The authors conducted a 5-year follow-up study of 79 persons found not guilty by reason of insanity who were referred to and accepted for court-mandated community outpatient treatment. This was a severely mentally ill and violent group with extensive experience in both the criminal justice and mental health systems. This program was not without risks despite a readiness to revoke the patients' conditional release status when indicated; during the 5-year follow-up period, 25 (32%) were rearrested (18 [72%] for crimes of violence), 37 (47%) were hospitalized, and 38 (48%) had their conditional releases revoked. The authors believe that members of this population need social controls and long-term treatment when they are in the community.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

The insanity defense for sex offenders: jury decisions after repeal of Wisconsin's Sex Crimes Law.

After repeal of a Wisconsin statute permitting hospitalization of defendants convicted of sexual crimes, the authors noted an increase in the percentage of sex offenders among persons hospitalized after being found not guilty by reason of insanity. They also found that a greater proportion of hospitalized sex offenders than of other kinds of offenders were diagnosed as nonpsychotic. Illustrating with three case studies, the authors argue that despite trends away from the therapeutic model of corrections, juries continue to make decisions that provide treatment for defendants perceived to need it, even if the legal criteria for those decisions do not appear to be met.

Adult↗