Revisiting time of ‘mental hospitals’ mostly revisionist history
By Harold A. Maio
Yes, editors, we did, we had mental institutions we called hospitals. Knowing what they actually were, we chose to dissemble. As a kid, I recall knowing full well what the local mental institution was, and as kids we had to know the reality from the adults around us; they did not disguise it in conversations.
From before the time of Dorthea Dix, people have tried to reform them with small success. The “romance” people experience revisiting those times positively is largely the result of imagination and revisionist history.
Harold A. Maio
Fort Myers, Fla.
Harold A. Maio is a retired mental health editor. His letter is in response to Michael C. Hall’s letter to the editor in Sunday’s Albany Herald.
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