Clifford Beers

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Clifford Beers as a student at Yale (1895)

Clifford Whittingham Beers (* 30th March 1876 in New Haven , CT ; † 9. July 1943 in Providence , RI ) is considered one of the founders of American psychiatry reform movement ( "Mental Hygiene Movement", dt .: Mental Health ) at the beginning of 20th century. Clifford Beers suffered from bipolar disorder and was admitted to a clinic for the mentally ill ("Insane Asylum") after a suicide attempt , where he spent three years. He published the history of his illness and his sometimes horrific experiences in the clinic in an autobiography in 1908, which amounted to a taboo break. The book was published in multiple editions and Beers' resulting notoriety enabled him to found the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, the forerunner of today's Mental Health America .

Life

Clifford Beers was one of five children of Ida and Robert A. Beers (1825–1916) and grew up in a long-established upper-middle-class family on the east coast of America. His family was predisposed to mental illnesses : all five siblings suffered from these illnesses in the course of their lives; all five died in institutions for the mentally ill.

Beers attended a grammar school in New Haven (CT) until 1891 and then moved to a high school in the same location, graduating in 1894. Shortly thereafter, his older brother had his first severe attack of epilepsy . Clifford Beers began his studies at Yale at the Sheffield Scientific School (Yale's then Faculty of Science and Technology) in the fall of 1894 , from which he graduated in 1897 with a BA . He would then pursue a career on Wall Street . During his student days, Clifford spent a lot of time with his sick brother, who died on July 4, 1900. The imminent death of his beloved brother and the fear of being epileptic himself triggered an acute crisis for Clifford Beers, and he attempted suicide by jumping out of the window on the fourth floor of his parents' house on June 23, 1900, and survived but with injuries.

After his suicide attempt, Clifford Beers was admitted to a closed private institution in 1900 with symptoms of severe depression with paranoid elements. His diagnosis today would likely be Bipolar Disorder (Type I) . He was later transferred to another private institution and then also to a public mental hospital. During his stay in the asylums, he was subjected to severe abuse by the staff. After three years, on the road to recovery, Beers made the decision to make the conditions in American psychiatric hospitals public. For this purpose, he sometimes voluntarily exposed himself to the various areas and “treatments” of the institution. For example, he intentionally allowed himself to be admitted to the Violent Illness Unit, where he was handcuffed in a straitjacket in a soft cell for 21 consecutive nights .

Clifford Beers on the frontispiece page of the first edition of "A Mind That Found Itself" (1908)

After his release Beers wrote his autobiography A Mind That Found Itself , for the preface of which he was able to win William James . In 1908 he published the book, which was instantly a huge hit with the public. His autobiography appeared in many editions and has been translated into several languages. The book and its fame enabled him to find supporters among psychiatrists, relatives of the sick and among progressive donors in order to begin a reform of psychiatry. In 1909 he and others founded the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, the forerunner of today's Mental Health America (better known as the National Mental Health Association). In 1913 he founded the first psychiatric clinic with an outpatient program in New Haven / CT.

Beers did not limit his reform work to the United States. In 1918 he founded the Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene (later Canadian Mental Health Association ) together with the Canadian doctor Clarence Hincks (1885–1964 ). In 1920 Beers and Hincks then founded the International Committee for Mental Hygiene, which was renamed the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) in 1948 . From its inception until the 1990s, the WFMH was the only UN- accredited NGO that dealt with the mentally ill. An important milestone on the way to the WFMH as a recognized international organization was the International Congress on Mental Hygiene, which Beers and Hincks organized in Washington, DC in 1930 . More than 4,000 psychiatrists, psychologists and health policy leaders attended the congress.

Clifford Beers experienced repeated manic and depressive episodes until his death at the age of 67 . Still, he was a leader in the psychiatry reform movement until 1939 when he retired. He died in 1943 as a patient in the private mental hospital Butler Hospital in Providence / RI. His last attending physician was Arthur Ruggles (1881–1961), himself an influential exponent of the psychiatric reform. The outpatient clinic in New Haven / CT, founded by Clifford Beers in 1913, still exists today and bears his name. An international scientific mental health foundation based in London was named after Clifford Beers in 1996.

Publications

  • Clifford Beers: A Mind That Found Itself . New York 1908, ISBN 978-1-4218-3031-5 . (Text available from Projekt Gutenberg.)
  • Translated from the American by Otto Reuter: A soul that found itself - autobiography of the founder of "Spiritual Hygiene" . Schwabe, Basel 1940.

literature

  • Norman Dain: Clifford W. Beers, Advocate for the Insane . University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh 1980, ISBN 0-8229-3419-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ David Semple et al .: Oxford Handbook of Psychiatry . Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-19-852783-7 , p. 301.
  2. ^ History of Psychiatry in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries in Canada ( December 21, 2008 memento on the Internet Archive ) on the Exceptional Family website, Resource Magazine for Parents of Exceptional Children, Montreal. (Retrieved June 7, 2009.)
  3. ^ Eugene B Brody: The World Federation for Mental Health: its origins and contemporary relevance to WHO and WPA policies . In: "World Psychiatry". Vol. 3 No. 1, pp. 54-55 of February 2004. PMID 16633456 .
  4. ↑ Ian Robert Dowbiggin: Keeping America sane: psychiatry and eugenics in the United States and Canada, 1880-1940 . Cornell University Press, Ithaca / NY 1997, p. 112. ISBN 0-8014-8398-0 .
personal data
SURNAME Beers, Clifford
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beers, Clifford Whittingham (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Founder of the American psychiatric reform movement
DATE OF BIRTH March 30, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH New Haven , CT
DATE OF DEATH July 9, 1943
Place of death Providence , RI