Mental illness and social work / Eugene Heimler.

"Until the advent of psychological medicine mental institutions, from Bedlam to the county asylums, merely existed to protect society. Lunatics were treated little better than criminals. The 1959 Mental Health Act tried to shift the emphasis, for the purposes of therapy, from the hospital to the community, and the care of the mentally sick is not set to move forward into a new and more enlightened phase. This new Pelican describes the theory of community care and explains how it works in practice. Eugene Heimler, a pioneer of the Hounslow Project and a consultant to the World Health Organization, uses case-histories and the comments of patients to build a very human account of the varied services which have grown up since the Act - out-patient clinics, rehabilitation centres, aftercare services, hostels, special factories, and places where the old can be helped or sub-normal children treated. His book provides a readable introduction to a revolutionary experiment about which most of us are all too ignorant. The cover shows the work of a patient under E.M. Lyddiatt in the Art Therapy Department of Halliwack Hospital, London" -- From back cover.