Alexis Muttillo

Professor Smith

English 101

16 November 2016

Ten Days in a Mad House

Just thinking of all the freedoms everyday American’s have, it becomes hard for one to imagine a life where some of those opportunities are taken away. However, when it comes down to it, there were and still are today multiple people living in the United States who are limited in their freedoms. Thinking of people who don’t have those same freedoms, prisoners may be the only group which comes to mind, but looking deeper mental health patients are also deprived of many of their freedoms. Although many people may not agree, most mental health patients are not psychopathic killers, but rather regular humans who just don’t think the same was as everyone else. Therefore, they are placed in a facility in which their needs can be met, but because of the fact that their illness is not something that can be cured with the simple use of medication or a surgery, they are put into a mental hospital, which resembles nothing of our typical everyday hospital. Back in the late 18th century, Nellie Bly decided she was going to go undercover to reveal what it is actually like to live in an asylum. While she was in the mental hospital, she kept a journal covering everything from the way the staff acted toward the patients, the living conditions within the facility, and the everyday routines of the patients. Some of the details which Bly describes is something that not everyone would assume to be true, but throughout history articles relating to mental hospitals and the care provided within them correlate closely with Bly’s experience.

An article written by Michael S. Goldstein entitled “The Sociology of Mental Health and Illness” contains information on the history of mental illness and the sociology behind how to cope with certain types of mental illness. Although Goldstein’s article has a main focus on the history and how to cope with having mental illness, he also touches on the workers within the mental hospitals and how they cooperate with patients. One of the main attention grabbers throughout the whole article is the use of the words “total institution” when Goldstein is referring to the asylums. The sound of those two words together creates a sense of negativity which doesn’t sound like it would be a good place to send people in need of help and healing. The use of “total institution” makes the mental hospital sound more as if it were a prison than an actual hospital. With that being said, the way in which mental patients were treated within the mental hospitals is more related to the way in which inmates were treated rather than legitimate patients.

Throughout the writing Ten Days in a Mad-house, Nellie Bly discusses her personal experience while being a patient at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum. Upon arriving at the mental hospital, Bly recalls being forced to change her clothes and put on an outfit that was supplied by the asylum, and Bly was not the only one which was forced to do this because very girl who entered was to do the same. In having all the patients wearing the same clothing, the mental hospital is able to conform the women into the specific ideology in which they want the perfect patient to look like. Goldstein stated “the state mental hospital actually constructs mental illness, forces inmates to adapt to the hospital, and provides a variety of stumbling blocks toward release” (400). With the patients being forced into conforming to these standards which the asylum has set, the patients starts to feel as if the environment has changed from a place in which they are able to heal to a better version of themselves to an environment where they are to have no individuality. Along with the standard of conforming the patients, Bly and Goldstein also agree on the use of the word institution when referring to mental hospitals. Since both writers use this term, the impact which it has on the reader makes it even more obvious that patients were probably not helped in the manor they needed, but more likely treated like inmates in a prison.

Within “Care and Treatment of the Mentally Ill in the United States: Historical Developments and Reforms,” Joseph P. Morrissey and Howard H. Goldman discuss how the mental hospitals are evolving in the United States to improve standards for patient care. Moral treatment of the patients is the first topic of discussion in the work, and the main focus within the section is the push for better care within the system as a whole, but due to rising population within the United States, asylums began to become overcrowded making it harder for improvements to be made. Moving to the next topic, Morrissey and Goldman bring up the mental hygiene in the asylums, and how the standards are trying to be improved as well as the development of the psychopathic hospital. Lastly, the authors discuss the CMHC, which helped to reinstate the previous prosperity of mental hospitals, and community mental health.

From the many stories Nellie Bly tells us in Ten Days in a Mad-house, it is easy to come to the conclusion that the mentally ill patients were probably not cared for the way in which they deserved to be treated. Yet in “Care and Treatment of the Mentally Ill in the United States: Historical Developments and Reforms,” Joseph P. Morrissey and Howard H. Goldman state that asylums are supposed to present a welcoming atmosphere where patients can receive treatment, therapy, express their own views, enjoy fun activities, and along with all of that feel respected by doctors and nurses. However, Bly’s experiences show a different story because she discussed how nurses disrespected patients, doctors never cared and kept their distance, and the environment throughout the whole asylum was melancholy. Further along Morrissey and Goldman talk about how asylums in the past were actually used as places to help cure and heal, but more recently they have been transformed into these gigantic projects which leads to nothing but deteriorating the overall purposes of providing a space for treatment. This description relates more to what Bly has been describing throughout her whole experience where the hospitals were overall dehumanizing and degrading towards their patients.

In conclusion, it is safe to assume that during the late 18th century and early 19th century that conditions within mental hospitals may not have been up to the expected standards in which there are today. However, back in that time period the knowledge on how to treat mental health patients was less advance due to the technology, and also the societal view on persons with mental issues affected the ways in which many families went about caring for their loved ones. Since many times it was looked down upon to have mental issues within the family, it did not matter the type of treatment which the patient receiving, but rather the fact that they were sent away, so no one knew exactly what was wrong. With this occurring, no one was able to speak up except the patients, and because the patients are obviously in the mental hospital, who would actually listen to their complaints. Looking into this field today, we are able to see an improvement in treatment due to new technology along with the support of regulations to maintain a better standard within facilities. 

Works Cited

Goldstein, Michael S. “The Sociology of Mental Health and Illness.” Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 5, 1979, pp. 381–409. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2945960.

Morrissey, Joseph P., and Howard H. Goldman. “Care and Treatment of the Mentally Ill in the United States: Historical Developments and Reforms.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 484, 1986, pp. 12–27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1045181.