insane asylums

Reitgjerdet hospital

Less psychiatric coercion in the early 1900s than in the 1970s

It’s easy to believe that society’s treatment of difficult, violent and criminally mentally ill people has become more humane over time. But that’s not the case. How patients at the end of the 19th century actually felt is difficult to say, but they were at least less exposed to mechanical coercion, according to an NTNU historian.