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McLean Hospital

Coordinates: 42°23′37″N 71°11′28″W / 42.393658°N 71.191075°W / 42.393658; -71.191075
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(Redirected from Somerville Asylum)
McLean Hospital
Mass General Brigham
Map
Geography
LocationBelmont, Massachusetts, United States
Coordinates42°23′37″N 71°11′28″W / 42.393658°N 71.191075°W / 42.393658; -71.191075
Organization
TypeSpecialist
SpecialtyPsychiatric hospital
History
Opened1811
Links
Websitewww.mcleanhospital.org
ListsHospitals in Massachusetts

McLean Hospital (/məkˈleɪn/) (formerly known as Somerville Asylum and Charlestown Asylum) is a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. McLean maintains the world's largest neuroscientific and psychiatric research program in a private hospital. It is the largest psychiatric facility of Harvard Medical School, an affiliate of Massachusetts General Hospital, and part of Mass General Brigham, which also includes Brigham and Women's Hospital.

History

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Print of the McLean Asylum in 1853, in Somerville MA.
Map of the McLean Insane Asylum from an 1884 atlas of Somerville, Massachusetts

McLean was founded in 1811 in a section of Charlestown, Massachusetts that is now a part of Somerville, Massachusetts. Originally named Asylum for the Insane, it was the first institution organized by a group of prominent Bostonians who were concerned about homeless mentally ill persons "abounding on the streets and by-ways in and about Boston". The effort was organized by Rev. John Bartlett, chaplain of the Boston Almshouse. The hospital was built around a Charles Bulfinch mansion, which became the hospital's administrative building; most of the other hospital buildings were completed by 1818.

The institution was later given the name The McLean Asylum for the Insane in honor of one of its earliest benefactors, John McLean, who granted enough money to build several such hospitals. A portrait of McLean now hangs in the present Administration Building, along with other paintings that were once displayed in the original hospital. In 1892, the facility was renamed McLean Hospital in recognition of broader views on the treatment of mental illness.

In 1895 the campus moved to Waverley Oaks Hill in Belmont, Massachusetts. Joseph Curtis (civil engineer) and Frederick Law Olmsted (the renowned landscape architect who also conceptualized the Emerald Necklace public spaces of Boston, New York's Central Park, and Hartford's Institute of Living) were consulted on the selection of the hospital site. The move was necessitated by changes in Charlestown, including new rail lines and other distracting development. Olmsted himself was eventually treated at McLean, but there is no evidence that he was responsible for the design of the grounds.[1][2] Once hospital construction began, Curtis was hired by the hospital, and supervised the landscape work for many years.[3]

In the 1990s, facing falling revenue in a changing health care industry, the hospital drafted a plan to sell a portion of its grounds for development in the Town of Belmont. The proposed sale of the land caused a divisive and somewhat baroque political debate in the town during the late 1990s. Ultimately a plan to preserve some of Olmsted's original open space and to allow the town to develop mixed residential and commercial real estate prevailed over a plan to create only high-end residential development. The deal was finalized in 2005, and land development was well under way by the end of the year. Most of the Belmont campus (more than 300 acres (120 ha)) had been listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

In 2006, Irene Jakab, a psychiatrist and humanist at McLean who had achieved prominence for her use of art therapy in the diagnosis and treatment of learning disabilities and mental illness, was awarded the title of honorary staff psychiatrist by the hospital in recognition of her forty years of service, after having previously been honored by the hospital with the creation of an annual award bearing her name.[4]

Current work

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McLean is known widely for its treatment of adolescents, most specifically its treatment of borderline personality disorder using dialectical behavioral therapy developed by Marsha M. Linehan.[5][6]

As of 2020, McLean is led by Scott L. Rauch,[7] President and Psychiatrist in Chief, who is known for his innovative work using brain imaging methods to study psychiatric dysfunction.

As one of the teaching hospitals of Harvard Medical School, McLean is differentiated from its New England peers (such as The Institute of Living and the Brattleboro Retreat) by its combination of teaching, treatment, and research; most other facilities focus on only one of these priorities. It is home to the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, the largest "brain bank" collection of research specimens in the world.[8] The hospital developed and implemented national health screening methods for alcohol, depression, and memory disorders. The Cole Resource Center, a mental health consumer resource and advocacy center, is located at the hospital.

Additional Locations

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In addition to the main Belmont campus, there are four additional locations. The Arlington, Cambridge, and SouthEast (in Middleboro) provide outpatient services, and the SouthEast at Oak Street (in Middleboro) provides inpatient services. Note that the Arlington and Cambridge offices only provide child and adolescent services, while the SouthEast provide services to all ages. [9][10][11]

Rankings

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Administration Building

Former patients

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Mathematician John Nash;[14][15] musicians James Taylor,[16][17] and Ray Charles;[16][18] poets Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton; Massachusetts politician and Civil War general Nathaniel P. Banks; authors Susanna Kaysen[16][17] and David Foster Wallace;[19][20] and criminal Michelle Carter have been treated at McLean Hospital.[21]

In books and media

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A story about the facility from 1853 describes the work underway and provides some statistics about the capacity and treatment outcomes.[22]

One popular and anecdotal history of McLean is Alex Beam's Gracefully Insane: Life and Death Inside America's Premier Mental Hospital. More-factual and scholarly accounts of the history are recorded in the Little and Sutton books listed in "Further reading".

Memoirs of time spent within McLean's walls include Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar, and Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted, which was made into a film of the same name starring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie. Samuel Shem's roman à clef Mount Misery tells a story inspired at least in part by the author's experiences at McLean. The 1994 Under Observation: Life Inside A Mental Hospital by Lisa Berger and Alexander Vuckovic uses some fictional techniques (composite characters, etc.) to describe some of the typical events at McLean. James Taylor's song "Knockin' 'Round the Zoo" recalls his stay at McLean as a teenager.[17][23] Poems of Boston and Just Beyond: From the Back Bay to the Back Ward by Doug Holder[24] are based on his more than three decades working there, and are archived at the poetry room at the Lamont Library at Harvard University.[citation needed]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Olmsted's life, legacy fuel enduring fascination". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on April 19, 2012.
  2. ^ "Frederick Law Olmsted Sr.: Landscape Architect, Author, Conservationist (1822–1903)". Olmsted.org. Retrieved 30 June 2012.
  3. ^ "McLean Hospital". Mclean.harvard.edu. Archived from the original on 11 May 2012. Retrieved 30 June 2012.
  4. ^ Barlow, Kimberly K. "Obituary: Irene Jakab," in University Times, Vol. 43, Issue 22, July 7, 2011. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh, retrieved online March 31, 2023.
  5. ^ "Parents of Sasha Menu Courey Talk About BPD". Psychology Today. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
  6. ^ "A system that fails troubled teens". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
  7. ^ "all - Staff Biographies - McLean Hospital". Mcleanhospital.org. Retrieved 21 May 2019.
  8. ^ Nield, David. "Welcome to The World's Largest Brain Bank". ScienceAlert. Retrieved 2019-11-06.
  9. ^ "McLean - Cambridge | Mass General Brigham". www.massgeneralbrigham.org. Retrieved 2024-09-16.
  10. ^ "McLean - Arlington Campus | Mass General Brigham". www.massgeneralbrigham.org. Retrieved 2024-09-16.
  11. ^ "McLean - SouthEast | Mass General Brigham". www.massgeneralbrigham.org. Retrieved 2024-09-16.
  12. ^ "McLean Hospital Psychiatry". U.S. News & World Report.
  13. ^ "NIH Awards by Location & Organization". NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools (RePORT). 20 December 2017.
  14. ^ "Interview with John Nash: My aren". Salon.com. Archived from the original on 2016-12-07. Retrieved 2017-09-04.
  15. ^ "About the Author - Chronology of Plath's Life". The Bell Jar. CliffsNotes. Archived from the original on 2007-03-13. Retrieved 2007-02-07.
  16. ^ a b c Sale, Jonathan (May 4, 2006). "Ray Charles played piano all the time". The Independent. Archived from the original on February 21, 2009. Retrieved 2007-02-07.
  17. ^ a b c Beam, Alex (November 26, 2001). "Shrink Wrapped Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll Were Regular Features of Life at McLean Psychiatric Hospital in Belmont". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 30 June 2012.
  18. ^ "Ray Charles Plays the "Harvard Club"". Harvard Magazine. January–February 2002. Archived from the original on 1 December 2008. Retrieved 30 June 2012.
  19. ^ Michiko Kakutani (August 22, 2012). "David Foster Wallace Biography by D. T. Max". The New York Times. Retrieved January 24, 2015. Mr. Max notes that pieces of "Infinite Jest" date back to 1986, when they may have been written as stand-alone stories, "beginning with the playful, comic voice of his Amherst years, passing through his infatuation with postmodernism at Arizona," and ending with his backing away from ironic detachment in the wake of a stay at the McLean Hospital psychiatric institute and a halfway house.
  20. ^ Katie Koch (December 13, 2012). "A too-short life, examined". Harvard Gazette. Retrieved January 24, 2015.
  21. ^ Jan Ransom (June 12, 2017). "Michelle Carter 'involuntarily intoxicated' by prescription before friend's suicide, psychiatrist testifies". Boston Globe. Archived from the original on February 13, 2019. Retrieved February 12, 2019.
  22. ^ Gleason, Frederick; Ballou, Maturin Murray (1852). Gleason's pictorial. Boston Public Library. Boston, Mass. : F. Gleason.
  23. ^ White, Timothy (2001). James Taylor: James Taylor, His Life and Music. London: Omnibus. p. 16. ISBN 0-7119-8803-X.
  24. ^ "Poems of Boston and just beyond: from the Back Bay to the back ward". Harvard Library. Archived from the original on 2015-03-02. Retrieved 2021-08-18.

Further reading

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