City of the Sick - Part II.ASF

This is a classic video showing just how far modern psychiatry has come since the middle of last century before modern medicine and deinstitutionalization. It is done in the style I remember some of my old health class reel to reel films being made. I am "guesstimating" it to be from around the 1940's given the looks of the cars, trucks, and downtown Columbus, Ohio. The story of how it was obtained is as follows... as a psychiatry resident at Ohio State University I rotated at the new State Psych Hospital (on the same grounds as the old) called Twin Valley Behavioral Health. I came across a man who had worked at the facility for sometime and was considered to be the de facto historian of the place. When the old building was being razed he went around collecting various items and historical memorabilia. The Columbus Dispatch even did a story on him years ago. At any rate, he found this old reel to reel film in a trash can... destined to be thrown out. He pulled it out and then it took him some time to find a reel to reel projector to play it. Once he did he was able to project it onto a wall and then filmed it with a modern day video camera. He was gracious enough to dub me a copy and I have since digitized it. The early shots of downtown appear to be shot off of the LeVeque Tower looking west towards the Broad Street Bridge and South towards the now Federal Building. The old hospital was classic "Kirkbride" Hospital Style and at one time was considered to be the "largest building in the US under one roof" until the Pentagon was built and took the title away. I had to upload it into two parts due to the length restrictions of Youtube. It is a good view for anyone interested in mental health but especially mental health professionals, medical students, Psychiatry residents, and Psychiatrists. I hope everyone finds this as interesting as I do and feel free to leave comments.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Mental Health
• Mental Institution
• Kirkbride Hospital
• Psychiatry
• Old School
• Columbus Ohio

[northernlightning]

LOL. This really is a joke.

[Abreen11]

@buckeyebilly293 northernlightning's view/opinion is far from uninformed. So do you hold the view that everything was all okay in these old mental asylums and the patients were treated well? Herding masses of people into overcrowded snakepits is somehow benificial for their well being? Unless someone is a risk to themselves or others, being part of the wider community is a great way to treat mental illness. Locking people up, out of sight out of mind only exacerbates their problem

[Abreen11]

@northernlightning Your comment is quite valid. This is a fantastic propaganda video to make mental health facilites look like Club Med and make everyone believe that behind closed doors everything is rosey. The reality, particularly back then was that psych facilities were overcrowded, understaffed and underfunded dumping grounds for anyone who was identified , rightly or wrongly as having a mental illness. Abuse of patients from staff was also rife..

[martita1947]

@northernlightning True, still the same and getting worst.

[Theghostswithin]

@buckyebilly293 Its true what you say..sadly many will never understand the illness and panthera of condition's associated with mental issue's let alone the treatment.

[buckeyebilly293]

northernlightning,

It is really ashame that you have such an uninformed and unhelpful view/opinion of Psychiatry. It is not even worth arguing such ignorance but since you seem to believe you know it all... what is is that you propose you/we treat mental illness with other than evidence based medicine and FDA approved medication? I have a feeling what you will say!

[northernlightning]

Times haven't changed. This film just shows what psychiatry wanted us to believe. This does not show what a mental facility was like or what it still is, its pure brutality.

This shows how media led people to believe these places as humane places for those who were emotionally hurt. People were and still are horribly abused by psychiatry. Anyone who's been at the hands of psychiatry know what it really is and it's not caring for people. Confinement, forced drugging for the name sake of money.

[ghostinthemean]

I love old school!