Dixmont State Hospital: The Rise and Decline of Moral Treatment in Psychiatry

Year: 
2017
Recipient Name: 
Alina Quach
Faculty Mentor Name: 
Robert Slammon
Faculty Mentor Department: 
Sociology
Librarian / Archivist: 
David Grinnell
Edward Galloway
Description: 
In the upswing of great social reform and rapid advancements in civilization in the early 19th century, there was an increased humanitarian awareness on the mistreatment of the mentally ill that would pave the way to a boom of psychiatric institutions, one of which was Dixmont State Hospital. However, the momentum of this movement would waver as the social perspectives of mental illness and its treatment changed towards the end of the 1800’s. This project sought to draw from the Dixmont annual record archives to investigate the hospital’s architecture and practices represent society’s belied in moral treatment to cure mental illness. In addition, Dixmont will serve as an example of an institution, amongst many at the time, that lost its original purpose of caring for mentally ill through moral treatment. The rapid influx of patients, especially those that were criminally insane, would force Dixmont to compromise moral treatment and send many patients back to prisons. This project ultimately uses the experiences of Dixmont to narrate the evolution of social perceptions of mental illness and its curability through the perspective of psychiatric hospital in the 19th century.
Photo: 
Alina presenting research during a workshop