Therapeutic interventions and milieu in psychiatry in the NHS between 1948 and 1998

Abstract

This paper will attempt to describe the evolution of mental health care over the past 50 years by examining different aspects of treatment and service provision.The last half century has seen enormous developments in both treatment and the environments in which it is delivered. It has seen the demise of insulin coma therapy, and the Victorian asylum and the development of community mental health team. The roles of doctors and nurses are radically different, with nurses carrying out assessment and treatment rather than being mere custodians. were embryonic, such as clinical psychology, are now powerful in both the positions that their members occupy in contemporary mental health practice, but also in the power that has been exerted on the knowledge base by psychological research. The paper explores some of these central changes in philosophy and approach. phenothiazines and the Some professions which