History of Mental Health in America

An era of "moral treatment" was introduced from Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century, representing the first of the reform movements in mental health services in the United States (U of T Library). The first reformers, including Dorothea Dix and Horace Mann imported the idea that mental illness could be treated by moving the individual to an asylum to receive a mix of somatic and psychosocial treatments in a controlled environment characterized by "…

…education, training, and child care programs, only a small handful of the impoverished would successfully pull themselves out of poverty. This is due highly to the fact that they earn low wages, as well as that education and training would be very costly. In their view, simply getting tough on welfare recipients will not alleviate poverty. They believe that labor market interventions should be adopted so as to expand opportunities for low-wage, low-skilled workers (Steisel).