Managing Madness: Weyburn Mental Hospital and the Transformation of Psychiatric Care in Canada

352 Pages·2017·3.373 MB·English

by  Erika Dyck, Alexander Deighton

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MANAGING
MADNESS
WEYBURN MENTAL HOSPITAL
AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF
PSYCHIATRIC CARE IN CANADA
ERIKA DYCK AND ALEX DEIGHTON
WITH HUGH LAFAVE, JOHN ELIAS, GARY GERBER,
ALEXANDER DYCK, JOHN MILLS, AND TRACEY MITCHELL
Managing Madness: Weyburn Mental Hospital and
the Transformation of Psychiatric Care in Canada
© Erika Dyck and Alex Deighton 2017
21 20 19 18 17 1 2 3 4 5
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database
and retrieval system in Canada, without the prior written permission
of the publisher, or, in the case of photocopying or any other
reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright,
www.accesscopyright.ca, 1-800-893-5777.
University of Manitoba Press
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Treaty 1 Territory
uofmpress.ca
Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
isbn 978-0-88755-795-8 (paper)
isbn 978-0-88755-537-4 (pdf)
isbn 978-0-88755-535-0 (epub)
Cover design by Frank Reimer
Interior design by Jess Koroscil
Cover image: Weyburn Mental Hospital © Michael Kesterton
Printed in Canada
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the
Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards
to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
The University of Manitoba Press acknowledges the financial support for
its publication program provided by the Government of Canada through
the Canada Book Fund, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba
Department of Sport, Culture, and Heritage, the Manitoba Arts Council,
and the Manitoba Book Publishing Tax Credit.
DEDICATED TO EVERYONE WHO HAS
ENCOUNTERED MADNESS

CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ix
Note on Photographs x
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction
WHO HAS SEEN THE ASYLUM?
1
Chapter One
OPTIMISM AND CELEBRATION
33
Chapter Two
EXPERIENCING THE ASYLUM
51
Chapter Three
FALSE STARTS
71
Chapter Four
SOCIALIZING MENTAL HEALTH CARE
87
Chapter Five
PILLS, POLITICS,
AND EXPERIMENTS OF ALL KINDS
115
Chapter Six
DISSOLVING THE WALLS
147
Chapter Seven
HOSPITAL DIASPORAS
174
Chapter Eight
CONSUMPTION AND SURVIVAL
200
Conclusion
LEGACIES
229
Notes 241
Bibliography 287
Contributors 307
Illustration Credits 310
Index 311

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
0.1. Indigenous admissions and discharges by year. 13
3.1. Combined annual admissions to Saskatchewan
mental health institutions. 80
3.2. Growth of defective population at Weyburn Mental Hospital. 82
3.3. Deaths and paroles among mentally defective population. 82
4.1. North Battleford-Weyburn residence of admissions, 1920–29. 91
4.2. North Battleford-Weyburn residence of admissions, 1930–39. 92
4.3. North Battleford-Weyburn residence of admissions, 1940–49. 93
4.4. Locations of Saskatchewan mental health facilities, 1944. 106
4.5. Locations of Saskatchewan mental health facilities, 1951. 106
5.1. Age at year of admission, Weyburn. 124
5.2. Diagnostic categories, North Battleford and Weyburn. 124
5.3. The distribution of diagnostic categories among the age and number of North
Battleford and Weyburn patients on admission, 1914–1948. 125
5.4. The diagnosis breakdown of North Battleford and Weyburn patients on admis-
sion, 1914–1948. 125
5.5. Gender distribution in patient population, North Battleford
and Weyburn. 126
5.6. Civil status of patients, Weyburn Mental Hospital. 126
5.7. Average length of all admissions (months), Weyburn Mental Hospital. 127
5.8. Average length of stay (months) by year and number of all admissions,
Weyburn Mental Hospital. 127