History of Mental Health Care

Webpage by a group of political activists who set up their own peer-support network to deal with the psychological consequences of being politically active outside the parliamentary system. Problems described include the consequences of living class struggle and being exposed to attacks by police.

A directory of former asylums in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, often with contacts to who holds the records now. It claims by no means to be complete, but it is a good start, especially for research on Welsh and English asylums.

BBC article from the year 2000 on the state of UK psychiatric hopsital care

Creative Routes is an award-winning interdisciplinary arts charity, run by the mad for the mad. Creative Routes celebrates and promotes the unique creativity of mad people, promoting mental well-being, and creatively campaigning against discrimination and for the acceptance of individuality in society.

The hospital/asylum section of Hidden Glasgow portrays local former asylums by showing urban explorer photos and a short description text. In the forums of the website you can find a lot more information by urban explorers who describe their visits and the state of the buildings throughout recent years.

a site dedicated to revealing the remains of England and Wales' local authority funded mental hospitals: resource for architectural, historical, comparative and social interest.

iPak is an auto-ethnographic and polyphonic narrative responding to scientific research which indicates that racism engenders mental illness; that consequently black people are several times more likely to suffer mental illness; that the very experience of living in the United Kingdom may almost drive black people mad.
The artist Ajaykumar was part of Testimony's series of exhibitions.

Fiction by Maggie O'Farrell on three women's life stories around the closure of the psychiatric asylums.
Esme is sent to a mental asylum at age 16, not uncommon for wayward women in the 1930s. 61 year later, the asylum is being closed and her niece, Iris, is told she must come get her. Iris didn't even know Esme existed and takes her back to what had been the family home. She finds her aunt sane and articulate. When Esme finds that Kitty is alive in a nursing home, albeit suffering from Alzheimer's, she wants to visit her. The family secrets that led to Esme's incarceration might finally be exposed. Maggie O'Farrell's novel has received positive reviews with the New Statesman saying, "The haunting final pages are among the finest O'Farrell has ever written.

Howard Mitchell analyses Lennox Castle Hospital, about ten miles from Glasgow at Lennoxtown. His study is the subject of the video clips that accompany this block. Lennox Castle Hospital belongs to the period of the 1920s and 1930s when separate provision for people with learning difficulties was being developed following the 1913 Mental Deficiency

US American exhibition on suitcases left behind by patients in the Willard psychiatric state hospitals (New York) and their life stories.