ABSTRACT
Many aspects of contemporary western treatment of psychosis are counterproductive with regard to maximising the recovery of the patient: that is to say, care and treatment are more conducive to the organisation of the care of the sick rather than the needs of the patient. When psychiatry eventually took over the care of the mentally sick during the nineteenth century, many people worked with great humanitarian inspiration in order to offer the same opportunity for treatment and care as available to those who suffered from physical illness. Mental asylums were created with large facilities for their care organised by medically qualified staff. Psychiatric care was relatively insulated from the rest of the community. This made it hard to obtain help quickly when it was needed, and once detained it was even harder to escape from the treatment. The result was that slowly but surely the number of people in care increased. During the middle of the twentieth century, psychiatric clinics attached to hospitals began to take over the role of the mental hospital. This marked a humanitarian reform in that the isolation of psychiatry was countered.
