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Mental illness and learning disability since 1850: finding a place for mental disorder in the United Kingdom
- Editors:
- DALE Pamela, MELLING Joseph, (eds.)
- Publisher:
- Routledge
- Publication year:
- 2006
- Pagination:
- 234p., bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- London
This collection of essays provides an assessment of the policies and practices devised to accommodate and manage a wide range of people with disabilities as well as mental illness. The last thirty years have seen many of the Victorian and Edwardian asylums and residential homes closed as alternatives to institutional care have been developed. It is suggested that the abandonment of these institutions and the limits of care in the community have led to public concern about the consequences of some of the policies that have been pursued regarding the care of those with mental disorders. The responsibility of families, neighbourhoods and wider society to care for their members has been the subject of debate in both historical and contemporary contexts. The authors emphasise the complexity of institutional systems: the workhouses, asylums, mental hospitals and hostels, illustrating the influence of medical and legal personnel as well as family members in the care offered to those identified as needing protection. Class relationships, gender and regional variations are revealed as factors which influenced the kind of psychiatric care provided.