Keeping Busy: Patients at Work

“ Employment, properly directed, is among the chief curative factors in the treatment of most forms of mental disorder…” - Medical Superintendent Thomas J. Burgess, MD

Since no effective treatments for mental illness existed in the early days of the Hospital, work was considered the best way to distract patients from “their troubles, real or imaginary”. By 1895, 65 percent of our patients worked at the Hospital in a wide range of jobs—from harvesting crops to painting to repairing clothes. None were forced to work, but all were encouraged to put their talents to use. Although this saved money for the Hospital, the positive results of work on patient behavior and self-esteem were considered the most important benefit.

In keeping with the beliefs of the times, private patients were not employed in these jobs. It was considered inappropriate for people from the “better classes” to perform such physical tasks.

In 1959, the Hospital began a formal industrial therapy program. To gain skills, earn money, and build self-esteem, patients worked throughout the Hospital, in the laundry, kitchen, farm, tailor's shop, used clothing rooms, paint shop, carpentry shop, housekeeping, stores, laboratory, x-ray, pharmacy and beauty parlor.