ABSTRACT
Work was a central component of the humane moral treatment approach of the nineteenth century. The superintendent of the Hanwell Asylum in England, for example, believed that proper employment “has frequently been the means of the patient’s complete recovery” (Ellis, 1838, p. 197); and Eli Todd wrote to the family of a patient about to leave the Hartford Retreat in Connecticut, in 1830, “I cannot too strenuously urge the advantage and even the necessity of his being engaged in some regular employment” (Braceland, 1975, p. 684). The moral treatment advocates would be distressed at the predicament of the seriously mentally ill in Britain and America today, most of whom have little or nothing to do in their day-to-day lives. In a study conducted in Colorado, in 1994, for example, half of the mentally ill in the community had no more than one hour of structured activity each day (Warner et al., 1994).
