Bibliograph

Gracefully insane, life and death inside America's premier mental hospital, Alex Beam

Type

Label

Gracefully insane, life and death inside America's premier mental hospital, Alex Beam

Language

eng

resource.accompanyingMatter

technical information on music

Form of composition

not applicable

Format of music

not applicable

Literary text for sound recordings

other

Main title

Gracefully insane

Medium

electronic resource

Responsibility statement

Alex Beam

Sub title

life and death inside America's premier mental hospital

Summary

Its landscaped ground, chosen by Frederick Law Olmsted and dotted with Tudor mansions, could belong to a New England prep school. There are no fences, no guards, no locked gates. But McLean Hospital is a mental institution, one of the most famous, most elite, and once most luxurious in America. In its "golden age," McLean provided as genteel an environment for the treatment of mental illness as one could imagine. But the golden age is over, and a downsized, downscale McLean, despite its affiliation with Harvard University, is struggling to stay afloat. A fascinating and emotional biography of McLean Hospital from its founding in 1817 through today. It is filled with stories about patients and doctors: the Ralph Waldo Emerson protege whose brilliance disappeared along with his madness; Anne Sexton's poetry seminar, and many more. The story of McLean is also the story of the hopes and failures of psychology and psychotherapy; of the evolution of attitudes about mental illness, of treatment approaches, and of the economic pressures that are making McLean, and other institutions like it, relics of a bygone age

Target audience

adult

Transposition and arrangement

not applicable

Classification