Editing Rockland State Hospital

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By 1959, the peak year for admittance, Rockland had more than 9,000 residents (including a staff of 2,000). The students, some of whom plan to pursue careers in mental health, studied the history of treating mental illness through archival research and first-hand interviews. At Rockland, insulin shock therapy was begun in 1937, followed by electroshock treatment and lobotomies. The students appeared visibly affected by seeing and handling some of the surgical instruments, all used, their teachers told them, not out of cruelty but as part of what was then considered state-of-the-art treatment.  
 
By 1959, the peak year for admittance, Rockland had more than 9,000 residents (including a staff of 2,000). The students, some of whom plan to pursue careers in mental health, studied the history of treating mental illness through archival research and first-hand interviews. At Rockland, insulin shock therapy was begun in 1937, followed by electroshock treatment and lobotomies. The students appeared visibly affected by seeing and handling some of the surgical instruments, all used, their teachers told them, not out of cruelty but as part of what was then considered state-of-the-art treatment.  
  
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Other therapy used was seclusion rooms with a single frosted glass window, a single bed, and a toilet, with a split door with a food service door at the center. Generally three days was the duration given to uncontrollable patients. According to an interviewed patient interned in the early 1940's primarily for being a child that was a discipline problem for her parents, and not having a mental illness, her parents through social services had her interned her at 9 years old for almost a year. Ice sheet baths were given as punishment for unruly, or uncooperative patients, as well as isolation punishments. Also among the girls there was a status social structure that established ones rank through fighting at night. Mostly an open dorm, community bed area was where patients were locked up together at night with staff interacting primarily during daytime hours only. There were 6 cottages for children. Three for girls and three for boys. Also as a non-professional opinion the patient felt that many of her fellow patients were interned due to being physically or mentally abused by family, and we're not diagnosed with mental illness, but became discipline problems, and therefore were made wards of the state.
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Other therapy used was seclusion rooms with a single frosted glass window, a single bed, and a toilet, with a split door with a food service door at the center. Generally three days was the duration given to uncontrollable patients. According to an interviewed patient interned in the early 1940's primarily for being a child that was a discipline problem for her parents, and not having a mental illness, her parents thru social services had her interned her at 9 years old for almost a year. Ice sheet baths were given as punishment for unruly, or uncooperative patients, as well as isolation punishments. Also among the girls there was a status social structure that established ones rank thru fighting at night. Mostly an open dorm, community bed area was where patients were locked up together at night with staff interacting primarily during daytime hours only. There were 6 cottages for children. Three for girls and three for boys. Also as a non-professional opinion the patient felt that many of her fellow patients were interned due to being physically or mentally abused by family, and we're not diagnosed with mental illness, but became discipline problems, and therefore were made wards of the state.
  
 
"In the early years there was very little anesthetic used," Loraine Milosevic, a Marymount junior, said. "They didn't even have teeth clamps to prevent those patients getting lobotomies from biting their tongues." The students learned about treatments for schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, ranging from hydrotherapy ( placing a patient into freezing water in a bathtub to calm the person) to repainting the institution's walls to affect the patient's psyche. (Pink, it turned out, is the most soothing color and today is found in almost all hospitals.)
 
"In the early years there was very little anesthetic used," Loraine Milosevic, a Marymount junior, said. "They didn't even have teeth clamps to prevent those patients getting lobotomies from biting their tongues." The students learned about treatments for schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, ranging from hydrotherapy ( placing a patient into freezing water in a bathtub to calm the person) to repainting the institution's walls to affect the patient's psyche. (Pink, it turned out, is the most soothing color and today is found in almost all hospitals.)

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