5,961 Comments for Kings Park Psychiatric Center

Any ideas on what it says on the last partition on the left (behind "clerical")? It looks the front partition says "Patient Life." (or some kind of life, anyway)

Dumbwaiters come from the days when kitchens were in the basement and the finished dishes were sent upstairs to the dining room via the dumbwaiter, rather than having to carry the food upstairs. Large private homes with servants had them as well as hospitals, nursing homes, etc.

Part of the reason these hospitals became so overcrowded and never had enough funding for quality treatment is because too many "normal" people think of people with mental illness as "weird" or "a freak show."

The large psychiatric facilities became much smaller or closed altogether, especially since 1970, for several reasons. New medications and more community mental health centers let patients be treated on an outpatient basis. States could no longer afford to maintain the huge facilities, many of which needed extensive repair and renovation to meet changing standards of care. There was increasing emphasis on providing treatment in the "least restrictive environment." A hospital usually is not the least restrictive environment. Many laws changed, but it is still definitely possible for a person with mental illness to be court-ordered to treatment in a state hospital. The standard that must be met is that the person is a danger to themselves or others.

There were/are patients committed to mental health facilities against their will, but probably not nearly as many as people think when they believe all the horror stories they've heard. In the past, some of the people committed to a hospital did not need to be there--they were sent by relatives, spouses, neighbors to "get rid" of them or because they were eccentric. Today, a person must be certified by a psychologist or psychiatrist (or both) as being an "imminent danger to self or others" and there must be no less restrictive option available. Thus today, even if someone does not believe he/she should be in the hospital, it is almost certain that the hospital IS the appropriate place. Often, not understanding that treatment is needed is one of the symptoms of the person's mental illness. Most of the unwilling patients come to realize this after treatment ameliorates their condition. Other people know that they are unable to manage in the community, and know that they need the hospital. A patient's condition is reviewed after no more than 30 days in the hospital to see if continued hospitalization is needed. If it is determined that it is needed, the commitment period is for a maximum of 2 years, at which time it must be reviewed again. A patient does not have to stay the full time if their doctor decides inpatient care is no longer required. There are also a few patients who like the attention and routine of the hospital, and will exaggerate their symptoms so the doctor will be persuaded to commit them. I had one patient, who when the psychiatrist thought she just needed a few days in our community-based crisis residential unit for evaluation, stood up and leaned over the doctor's desk and said ,"Well, if I said I'm going to kill myself, then can I go?" In another comment I mentioned people who preferred the hospital because it was a better place to live than their community home. Other reasons I've seen for patients who want to go to the hospital are being faced with criminal charges (usually a patient can't pull this off because in most cases, it wasn't the person's illness that led to the criminal act) and people who have co-existing substance abuse problems and owe money to their dealer. So, while there certainly were more abuses in the past, we can't extrapolate and assume none of the patients needed to be there, or that it was the hospital that made them "go crazy."

parang nakakatakot tingnan ung kwarto dahil parang madumi at prang haunted house na dahl sobrang nakakatakot at prang may aswang good luck sa lahat ng nurse

Does anyone know what the purpose was in having the two different colors on the walls? Was it just a decorating trend at the time? (I've seen walls painted like this in buildings and private homes in the Middle East even today, but I don't think it's as common in the US now as it was in the past.) Was a better quality (more expensive) paint used on the lower half of the wall that would get the most wear, and a cheaper paint on the upper half? Did they want to avoid a huge expanse of one color or create the illusion of a lower ceiling? Or maybe to be able to just repaint the lower half ? Sorry...I wonder about things like this...

I meant to add that beauty is also in those who go out of their way to take these pictures, preserving our past, and are generous enough to share their work with us.

"Beauty" does not mean "perfection." For me, the beauty is in the creativity of the people who invented elevators and safety devices, the pride and skill of the workmen who installed them with their own hands, the inspectors who made sure they worked correctly, the people who used them every day to get from one floor to another, the abilities of those who painted the walls and swept the floors to make others' lives easier, and how all of those souls can be remembered by looking at a picture. I would feel like less of a person if all I saw when I looked at this was some rust and peeling paint. Oh, and even "crackheads" are people too, and deserve compassion. "With God as our Father, brothers all are we." "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto Me."

This picture prompted many thoughts about how the world has changed, become much "smaller" in terms of ease of communication, and yet at the same time much less personal, summed up by the old telephone. Remember how heavy those phones were? And how you didn't own the phone, you rented it from the phone company? No direct dialing of long-distance calls (you had to use an operator). International calls were often an all-day process--you called the operator, were patched through to an international operator who hopefully spoke English, gave your information, and then hours later, when an international line was available, the operator called YOU back and connected you with an operator in the country you were calling to complete your call). It reminds me of the day my son came home to tell me about the fantastic thing he had seen at a friend's house--this machine with an arm that raised up and moved over, then went down to a thin round flat thing that was spinning, and music came out! I hadn't realized that digital age children had never seen a record player and didn't even know the word. I've tried to explain keypunch machines and card readers and getting up to change the tv channels (where I lived there were only three, and none of them broadcast between midnight and 6am), but it's like describing another universe. With all those changes in our lives, it should not surprise us that methods of caring for people with mental illness have also changed dramatically. It's more important to learn from the past than to judge and condemn the people who were doing the best they could with what they knew.

Thinking of all the people I've worked with over the years, I think most of them would have felt safer and been more comfortable in a small room like this, with a window to the outside and that didn't have to be shared, than in a large open dormitory with a dozen or more other patients, no privacy, and lots of noise. When a person feels out of control and perhaps thinks the world is out to get him/her, a small private space can be good. I know if given the choice of this room or the dormitory in the previous shot, I would choose this room every time.

It always looks like the paint is trying escape

that is usually an observation room,for patients on close supervision.
The majority of clients shared a dorm together sectioned off by lockers.

Of all the hundreds of photos here (all amazing), this one really speaks to me. It doesn't look cramped. It says "refuge," a place to hide. The blue walls are the color of the ocean in the winter.

The faucet has an organic shape to it. It doesn't even seem to be manufactured.