A Refuge of Cure or Care
The Sensory Dimensions of Confinement at the Worcester State Hospital for the Insane
Abstract
In A Refuge of Cure or Care: The Sensory Dimensions of Confinement at the Worcester State Hospital for the Insane, Madeline Kearin Ryan analyzes the therapy model of the nineteenth-century asylum. Because the five senses were believed to provide a direct conduit into a person’s mental condition, the curative force of the hospital was thought to reside in its command over sensory experience. Ryan examines how the institution was designed to target each of the five senses as a mode of therapy, and conversely, how that well-intentioned design materialized in the haphazard realm of institutional practice. In doing so, Ryan seeks to reconcile the disjuncture between the benevolent promise of the asylum model and its ultimate failure in a way that captures the complex power dynamics and heterogeneity of actors within the institution.
Schlagworte
American history Archaeology historical anthropology history of medicine psychiatric hospital psychiatric institution insane asylum institutional psychiatry institutionalization lunatic asylum mental asylum architecture asylum disability history- Kapitel Ausklappen | EinklappenSeiten
- 1–34 Introduction 1–34
- 155–186 Chapter 5: Dirty Bread, Forced Feeding, and Tea Parties: The Uses and Abuses of Food 155–186
- 205–222 Bibliography 205–222
- 223–226 Index 223–226
- 227–228 About the Author 227–228