MHA's Blog: Chiming In

I’ve been immensely proud to work at Mental Health America for over four years now, and the story of the creation of the organization has always been a source of pride. Clifford Beers, a young man from Connecticut, spent three years in various mental hospitals in the state, and when he got out, he changed the world. He wrote a book called A Mind That Found Itself, published in 1908, and used his experiences to create the National Committee on Mental Hygiene. The Committee was created in 1909, and in 2012, we celebrate 104 years of fighting for what Mr. Beers strove for, openness and lack of stigma for people with mental illnesses. This idea goes back to his time in hospitals, and to the writing of his book.

In A Mind That Found Itself, Beers explains his journey through mental illness and the mental health system in Connecticut in the early 1900s. He suffered from Bipolar Disorder, which first manifested itself in suicidal thoughts after his graduation from Yale. After an attempted suicide in which he had broken bones in both of his feet, he was committed to a private mental hospital, where he was convinced that the police were following him and recording him in hopes of trying and executing him for his suicide attempt (a crime in the state at the time). He would then be transferred to a public hospital and then a state hospital, where his treatment would be harsh and brutal. Over the next three years, he would cycle through manic highs and depressive lows, all while recording the treatment of himself and other patients in the hospital.

Writing this book was incredibly brave in 1908, as it would be now. Beers lays out his own illness with an amazing level of clarity. He discusses his suicidal depression, which led to his jumping out a window and breaking bones in both of his feet. His delusions of persecution centered on his belief that his family had been replaced by doubles who looked just like them, working for the police. His highs included writing for days, believing his could defy gravity and change the ways of the world in days. Both are explained in a vivid way that anyone can understand, and can see the logic of. He admits to his own failings, and his own overestimations, which put his illness in comparison to his personality.

In a time when discussing mental health issues were utterly unlikely, the idea that someone would write a book discussing his own mental illness, and his own treatment at mental hospitals, is amazing. Even allowing for the fact that he was a wealthy, white man with a Yale degree, he had a lot to lose. Today, it is brave to admit that one has a mental illness-imagine being one of the first. There are a few books prior to A Mind That Found Itself, discussing addiction notably de Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater in 1821, but there are no memoirs about mental illness before Beers’. His suggestion that people with mental illnesses speak for themselves, and have a voice in regards to their own treatment and recovery, is revolutionary, and deserves to be considered with the other prominent turn of the century social reformers like W.E.B. Dubois and Susan B. Anthony.

Additionally, Beers’ book helped spur the reform of mental hospitals. He was able to get the Governor of Connecticut to review his claim of abuse in the first hospital he was admitted to, though not the state hospital where the harshest treatment occurred. He spent over 300 nights in a strait jacket tied so tightly he couldn’t move his hands at one hospital, and at another hospital he went without clothes, heat, food or a bed for a month. He recorded being deprived of paper and pencils and not being allowed to contact his brother. He also recorded much more severe abuse suffered by fellow patients, including severe beatings, being dragged by their hair and being starved for days. None of this constitutes treatment, which is what the patients were at the hospital for. Beers writes, “The violent, noisy, and troublesome patient was abused because of that very helplessness, which made it necessary for attendants to wait on him.” Later on, he adds, “Patients with less stamina than mine often submitted with meekness; and none so aroused my sympathy as those whose submission was due to the consciousness that they had no relatives or friends to support them in a fight for their rights.” This abuse he acknowledges comes partly from the system itself, in that people unsuited and untrained for taking care of patients (including a tramp that showed up at the door looking for a place to sleep) are put in charge.

We’ve come a long way from the issues Beers’ faced, though not far enough. After his release, he got a job in banking, saying his boss was an open-minded person. “As the man tersely explained to me, ‘When an employee is ill, he’s ill, and it makes no difference to me whether he goes to a general hospital or a hospital for the insane.’” He later sums up what he believes needs to be done to change the plight of the abused patient in the mental hospital: “More fundamental, however, than any technical reform, cure or prevention – indeed, a condition precedent to all these – is a changed spiritual attitude towards the insane. They are still human: they love and hate, and have a sense of humor. The worst are usually responsive to kindness.” This change is still coming. In regards to his boss, he notes that his attitude is common sense and rational, and “this attitude, which is, indeed, exceptional today, will one day (within a few generations, I believe) be too commonplace to deserve special mention.” We are working hard to make that true, but in 100 years since he wrote those words, work still has to be done.

Reading A Mind that Found Itself should be required reading for high school and college students. Beers’ voice was one of the strongest voices for social reform during the turn of the last century, and was at the forefront of the continuing disabilities rights movement, and the continued movement towards peer support and the better treatment of people with mental illnesses. But it should be required reading for another, simpler reason. Beers lays out his mental illness, its symptoms, and his recovery in a simple, easy to understand way. He refuses to let the reader make him anything other than a sick, smart man.  I wish I had read this book earlier in my life-it would have changed the way I dealt with people when I was younger, and might have made my little slice of the world a better place.

Please read A Mind That Found Itself. Trust me; it’s worth the time.   (Get your copy today in our MHA Store:  https://secure2.convio.net/nmha/site/Ecommerce/1219713277?VIEW_PRODUCT=true&product_id=1072&store_id=1481)