4,537 Comments for Pennhurst State School

Hi Marcia,
What was the TA class? I'm just wondering. Was it all for the staff or were patients there too? I read all of the above comments and I know that the picture was drawn by the TA class (and that most people in the class thought it was stupid) but I'm not sure what the TA class was. Also, was this picture hung up in a place near the patients? It just seems weird to me that if the TA class consisted of all adults that they would have to draw such a childish picture.
I'm just asking out of curiosity, I'm not passing attacking you, I'm just confused about what the purpose of this class was.
Lynne, I read one of your comments from January. I think it was the 13th of January 2006 and I have to say that your job sounds really difficult but really interesting. It must be hard to have to look over all those injuries and see where they came from. I believe you when you say most of them are self inflicted since I've read that a good number of the mentally ill do try to hurt themselves. It must be a really sad thing to see but I applaud you for doing your upmost to help those who are ill.
Once I heard a story but it maybe a rumor. Have you ever heard that way back in the olden days of threapy, the 1800s let's say, one of the ways to "cure" mental illness was to scare it out of ill? I've heard that back in those days the doctors would try to frighten people into saneness and actually do more harm than good. Is there any truth to this at all? If so how did they frighten them (like did they jump out at them and shout BOO or threaten them somehow)?
Sorry to ask so many questions but I'm really interested by all this.

The woman who actually drew this picture writes in to this list under the name "Black Sheep Marcia." Ask her directly.

Hi Lynne,
Thanks for your reply. I totally understand what you mean about the staff who tried. It must be the hardest job in the world to deal with people like this. I like how you admit that these places had problems but defend the staff. I agree, many of these patients were violent and I suppose that in some cases they did need to be restrained.
Still, I think all those old movies and pictures from Pennhurst are important to see so people can understand how much better mental institutions are today. They were hell holes back then though, I don't think that can be denied. I know that people with certain mental problems still have to be restained at times due to violent antics but at least the conditions today are a lot better.
Again I never meant to attack the staff at all, I'm just saying that I am glad that conditions are better now.
One thing I didn't understand: they say this picture was drawn by staff right? Well wasn't it also supposed to be hung up in an area near kids? That's all I meant when I said it might scare some kids if it was hanging in a place they might have seen it. That's the only reason I commented about the children. Didn't the TA class involve the kids? Again thanks for your knowlegde.

Guess we'll jes' have to be misguided ignorant torturing asshats all by our ownselves, eh? ;-)

Ok, once again.......this picture was NOT painted for the "children",was not seen by the "children" had NOTHING to do with the "children" Obviously you didn't go back and read what this picture was about. Rather than explain it all over again, scroll up to 7-8-05 and read the explanation. However, if you are like most of the morons who have left comments you probably still won't get it. And once again well said Lynn.

Long Island,

Yes, I have seen that film. I have been in this field since 1972, I have worked in multiple settings, both community and institutional, and my doctorate is in mental retardation and clinical child psychology. There is nothing new in that video that I haven't seen in many other videos, many other books & photographs, and, more importantly, in person up close and personal. While working directly with people with various "challenging" conditions I have been attacked physically, called names I had never even heard before, and smeared with excrement and saliva, but I wouldn't stop working in this field for anything in the world because it is my life and these people are my life. I have also been valued and appreciated more than almost any of the rest of you because I have tried to help folks who thrive when they are treated well and appreciated. I don't care what anyone in the entire universe thinks of me personally because I see myself reflected back so positively in the eyes of these people when I walk up to them and know that we each know who the other person TRULY is, all handicaps and diplomas and B.S. aside.

If anyone thinks that I am blindly defending the horrors that were often part and parcel of institutional life, then they haven't read what I have been writing. So rather than bore everyone else who has read this schpiel the 1,000+ times I've written it, let me cover the key points:

1. Society didn't like people who were different and, frankly, still doesn't.
2. Society (the people who vote and pay taxes) wanted these people elsewhere, hidden from sight, and *IN HALF OF THE STATES IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA* the people voted for the involuntary sterilization of these people. This was heard in the U.S. Supreme Court by no less famous and respected a jurist as Oliver Wendell Holmes, and he and the court AGREED.
3. The voting portion of the United States did not elect to give much in the way of money to these places to take care of the people who were sent there.
4. These places were built to take care of a certain number of people.
5. These places were ALL filled WAY past the point of intended capacity, sometimes double their capacity, because the voting people of the United States did not want to look at these people, and in a number of places, tried to enact legislation to kill these people. They usually settled for segregation and involuntarily sterilization, and since they didn't vote for enough money for decent housing, care, and/or medical services, they inadvertently sentenced many of these people to a VERY short life.
6. The wages paid to the people who worked (and still work) in these places has always been abominably low because the people of each state vote for the taxes that constitute the wages that are paid to these people. If you don't value the people who live somewhere, you don't bother to pay a lot to the people who take care of them.
7. The industry of direct care workers across the United States has the highest injury rate of any profession, bar none.
8. Not only were the wages terrible, but the number of staff hired was always inadequate because few people could get by on the meager salaries paid unless they worked overtime or in a second job.
9. Subsequently, mandatory overtime was (and is) atrocious, the turnover rate is an embarrassment to any civilized nation, and the lack of respect that most of you give to the people who were brave enough, tenacious enough, and caring enough to work here would make most people commit suicide, much less go back to work for yet another 16-hour shift.
10. The people who were sent here to live were an amalgamation of all the people who society thought were bad, evil, or just plain "different". Few of them wanted to live in these places, often families didn't want to send their loved ones here, but the truth is, the voting portion of the United States of America did not care enough about these people to pay the taxes it took to keep them at home, and in most places, the voters worked very hard (and continue to work hard TO THIS VERY DAY) to keep "people like this" out of THEIR schools and THEIR neighborhoods.

When I teach the yearly risk management refresher course to the people at the facility where I work, I ask them all to give themselves a pat on the back for the incredible job they do keeping alive the sort of people that the rest of you only have strange, uneasy dreams about. I tell them that if they were to, as a group, get wiped out one day, the people who live where we work would be dead in a week because most of the rest of society wouldn't have the first clue how to take care of folks who are this complicated medically, behaviorally, and physically.

Were these places hellholes at times? You bet they were. And given that every state had a place like this that fell on to similar hard times, it was pretty much only by the grace of the dedicated facility staff that so many of these people are still alive.

When I see people taking potshots at these staff my blood boils. I have to say, I truly scorn anyone who dares criticize these folks without working several shifts, lifting the stiff, misshapen bodies of people who can barely move a limb, helping take care of the very people who may have physically attacked them not an hour before, helping people who are blind and deaf and physically handicapped to get some recreational experiences, sitting with people who are in the midst of status epilepticus and not knowing whether they are ever going to come out of the seizure, and/or lifting someone with severe osteoporosis resulting from years of anticonvulsant medications only to hear that sickening "snap" sound that means that a bone has broken and knowing that they will then have to undergo an investigation because of the injury, even though they were as gentle and as careful as anyone could be.

THAT'S how I can defend this place and revile it at the same time. It's by holding two truths together at once - truths that on the surface look discrepant but aren't when you really look at them and consider them.

*****

:-) End of rant :-)

I agree with Brina, that drawing does seem kind of strange since it's in a place which housed disturbed children. Why put something like that around unstable children? Pennhurst seemed to house a lot of retarded children and many of them are easily frightened. Why draw something like this for them? It's like rubbing salt into an open wound.
Now I don't want to fight here. I'm sure many good people did work at Pennhurst--however according to actual court transcripts many bad people did to. In fact, most of the good employee's at Pennhurst ended up coming out and filing complaints against the place.
I've been reading Lynne's comments and she really seems to know a lot about mental hospitals and the care of disturbed patients but I really have to wonder if she has seen that old movie footage from back in the 1960s.
How could anyone look at that and defend this place?

Ive seen this before. it kind of looks familiar i dont know what from though. this site is cool.

I live in Chester Springs and I went to the hospital with a friend last summer and it was freaky as hell. Lots of bad energy. We saw a man riding a bike around the place, it was like he was in a trance. Weird.

I get disturbed just thinking about it . . . . ;-)

Wow, how disturbed would you be if you saw what was in MY basement? It's a playroom... kind of...

Yes, I am now disturbed as well.

Playrooms in the basement... how disturbing...

It makes you feel dizzy looking up like that . love the shot.

its a waste of trees but it makes u wonder if somebody lostit along the way>