Post-World War II and the Government: 1950s-late 1970s

After eugenics was taken to the extreme in World War II, it left a sour taste in the mouth of Americans.  The government decided to act and the real deinstitutionalization began.  They developed out-patient clinics for the mentally ill and began to pick up the costs of treatment.  This freed up hospitals and allowed those with mental illnesses to live at home with families, in nursing homes, or, if they had no family, in shelters. Community care initiatives were developed and Medicare and Medicaid increased their funding for treatments in non-hospital settings.  The Social Security Act provided funding and enabled many with mental illnesses to move from hospitals to private facilities (Whitaker, 2009).

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Whitaker, R. (2009). Deinstitutionalization and neuroleptics. In Y. O. Alanen, G. dC. Manuel, A. S. Silver, & B. Martindale (Eds.) Psychotherapeutic Approaches to Schizophrenia Psychoses: Past, Present, and Future, (pp. 346-356). New York, NY, US: Routledge/Taylor and Francis Group.

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