After watching the film Insanitarium I was inspired to situate my fashion film in a mental asylum because they are feared amongst the public from scary and horrific stories told through history and I think showing aspects of a mental asylum will definitely create awareness by shocking people with the awful treatment that people locked in mental asylums experienced throughout their lives.
This documentary, produced by Adam Jessel and directed by Chris Boulding, explores the story of British mental asylums and why they no longer exist. Past patients, nurses and doctors share their experiences, revealing the secrets behind the locked doors of the 120 mental institutions, post-war.
People were taken to mental institutions if they had a mental illness, like anxiety or claustrophobia etc. However some patients locked away in these asylums didn't have an official mental illness. Patients stay in these institutions for a variety of reasons and for varied lengths of time, some staying there for over 35 years. The conditions were not anywhere near up to the standards kept in today's hospitals or care homes, with many beds squashed into one room to save space. The doors were always locked to make sure nobody escaped or went anywhere they shouldn't.
 |
| Fair Mile, A Former Victorian Mental Hospital (Walker-Read, E., 2015.) |
The doctors tried and tested many different treatments and surgical procedures to try and cure patients of their mental illnesses; however they were very limited. They tried sending an electric current through the body to deliberately give patients a seizure, with wires either side of their head and with no anesthetic! Another procedure carried out was removing a certain part of the brain by burning a hole through the skull and into the brain; however they didn't know what they were doing and this was only a theory. It would be obvious patients had had this done because they would have clear holes in their heads. There was a story told by an ex-nurse who said they used 'thump therapy' which was when the nurse would thump very aggressively or hit the patient in front of everyone if they did something wrong. The nurse would also hold the patients' head under water as torture to teach them a lesson. There were many experiments with pills; however some ex-patients of the mental asylum say they think the pills actually made them worse!
As time went on the conditions started to improve and the interior started to look more homely. The asylums began to employ an open door policy where family members could visit. Occupational therapy was also employed to give the patients some activities to do and focus on, for example sewing and knitting became popular and there were dance classes available. However the hospitals were still not as advanced medically as they needed to be. Doctors were continuing to put patients on drugs they thought were curing their mental illness, when actually the tranquillizing drugs were causing new problems. They were using sedative drugs, which are known for depressing the activity of the nervous system and reducing anxiety; however the sedative drugs used were beginning to cause the patients to get Parkinson's disease which made the patients' to get a tremor and rigid, slow movement.
Mental asylums were seen by outsiders as a place for crazy and sometimes dangerous people which divided the population. Children were growing up to be scared of the mental hospitals, joking that if you did something bad or silly then you would end up in the mental home! These mental institutions, after many previous attempts, finally closed their doors for good in the 1980s, when all patients were released into society and the caring business became more easily accessible from your home or at a local hospital. This closed the divide between the mentally ill and the rest of society, making them seem less like freaks and more accepted.
WALKER-READ, E., 2015. Fair Mile Hospital through the years [viewed 3rd January 2017]. Available from: http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/berkshire-history/gallery/fair-mile-hospital-through-years-8672670
Mental: A History of the Madhouse, 2011[TV]. Channel Four. 14th January. 01:40
No comments:
Post a Comment