A Mind That Found Itself

A firsthand account of insanity and recovery. Clifford Whittingham Beers (1876-1943) was the founder of the American mental hygiene movement. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, he was one of five children, all of whom would suffer from psychological distress and die in mental institutions. He graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale in 1897. In 1900 he was first confined to a private mental institution for depression and paranoia. He would later be confined to another private hospital as well as a state institution. During these periods he experienced and witnessed serious maltreatment at the hands of the staff. After the publication of A Mind That Found Itself (1908), an autobiographical account of his hospitalization and the abuses he suffered, he gained the support of the medical profession and others in the work to reform the treatment of the mentally ill. He was a leader in the field until his retirement in 1939.