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Episode details

Radio 4,07 Jan 2009,30 mins

Total Institution

State of Mind

Available for over a year

Claudia Hammond tells the story of mental health care in the UK from the 1950s to the present day and explores, with the help of listeners' testimonies, how treatment and understanding of mental illness has changed over the past 50 years. The 1950s promised a new deal for the mentally ill, with new drugs and radical legislation. Psychiatrists believed they had the answers, yet seclusion in asylums continued.

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