[Biographies following release from mental hospital, Glasgow 1875-1921].

Abstract

For a long time mental asylums were seen as hermetically sealed units for the long-term confinement of patients. The broad and excluding nature of these establishments was their most prominent feature. From the end of the last century socio-historical and patient-oriented research has questioned and revised these properties. The present essay is based on that research. Using the example of a pauper asylum in Glasgow between 1875 and 1921 the essay analyses the number of released patients, how they were released and how they lived after being released. The sources used were individual patient files of the asylum and the corresponding files of the pauper administration. Although the number of releases--especially of patients who had been cured--declined in the period of investigation, the rate of successful outcomes remained, at 20 to 30 per cent, clearly above that of comparable institutions of the 1910s. According to the files, the key factor in favour of a release was the ability for social re-inclusion. The files examined reveal three typical biographical patterns: reintegration, psychiatric care and social care. While the first group tended to disappear from the sight of physicians and carers, members of the other groups frequently reappeared in the records. Apparently, social services as well as the asylum were often used to help cope with temporary family crises. Once the situation improved, the patients in question left social care and were taken home by their families.