Mental Illness in the

1950s & 1960s

By, Jessica Kirby, Femi Akintoye, & Shannon Knauer

• 1950s-The Athens Asylum reached its peak population of nearly two thousand patients.

• 1952- The first conventional antipsychotic drug, chlorpromazine , was introduced to treat patients with schizophrenia and other major mental disorders.

• 1953- Lobotomy was the new cure for mental health. Due to the number of complications and deaths that resulted from the procedure it was referred to as “psychic mercy killing” and “euthanasia of the mind.” was by far mental health care’s darkest hour.

1954- The New York State Community Mental Health Services Act was passed.

The act encouraged localities to establish community – based mental health programs and to apply for state reimbursement of up to fifty percent of the cost of these programs.

1954- The medical community introduced an anti-psychotic drug called Thorazine for the treatment of the mentally ill.

• 1955- The Federal Mental Health Study Act funded the activities of the joint commission on Mental Illness and health, a study group established by the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association

• 1956- The DMH created the Association of Community Mental Health Boards in order to foster communication between and innovation among community mental health boards (CMHB’s), the local authorities responsible for creation and administration of community- based mental health programs.

• 1959- The DMH created ten Regional Mental Health Advisory Committees in an effort to assist CMHB efforts to devise suitable programs.

• 1960-There were over 500,000 patients in mental institutions all over America.

• 1964- There were concurrent shifts in insurance coverage for the mentally ill provided by the Comprehensive Mental Health bill.