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Join me for an interview with Dr. Roger Christenfeld, Research Director of the Hudson River Psychiatric Center. Dr. Christenfeld and I talk about how psychiatric patients were treated in the heyday of this incredible center. I think you’d be surprised at some of the things he has to say. Below you’ll find both an audio version and a video version of this same interview.
Related Web Sites
- Here is the homepage for the Hudson River Psychiatric Center.
- Here’s another site, called Historic51, which has some great photos of the Psychiatric Center, as well as digitized images from the Center’s museum.
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Years and years ago, I had a bit of contact with Hudson River State Hospital (HRSH) as a volunteer in the Hillcrest School for Children. I now teach Abnormal Psychology and found the interview with Dr. Christenfeld fascinating. I’ve assigned my current class the job of listening to it sometime over the next week so that we can discuss it a bit in class. My own comments about the HRSH and the podcast are in my weblog, Storied Conduct, at this link.
In response to the podcast “From Insane Asylum To Psychiatric Center” (8/28/07) , I must state that the “country club” ambiance of H. R. S. H. was restricted solely to the paid employees at the complete exclusion of the patients except for some very basic play activities such as baseball. According to numerous older patients, the gardening program was great therapy, but when it was abolished because they would have to pay the patients minimum wage, it was right back to the boring wards. The Hillcrest building was never deserving of the title “school” or "Academy" because the educational program was so substandard, that those of us who were eventually discharged would re-enter the public school system a least a few grades behind. So H. R. S. H. was highly comparable to a medieval manor where the patients were the cerfs. Incidentally, when we at Hillcrest were taken out trick or treating for Halloween, it was always the day before or the day after because Halloween was the day where the children of the employees who lived on the grounds would trick or treat. How’s that for apartheid! Thus de-institutionalization had to occur as a matter of basic civil rights.
Very interesting Tim. Thank you for sharing your insights. I’ll try to get ahold of Dr. Christenfeld and let him know about your post and see if he has a response. Again thanks.
Michael
To both Dr. Christenfeld AND Mr. Britt:
Considering that it is only from ex-patients that the most graphic insights can be obtained as to how these people were treated and what actually went on in these warehouses for the mentally ill, I find it stultifying that neither of you sought contact with any of us prior to conducting such an interview. But if you ever decide to update this interview and you can reinburse me for my Metro North expense from where I live in NYC, I would be happy to comply. In adendum to my previous incidental, if you were in H. R. S. H. and did not have parents who gave you money for your own toothpaste, you were forced to brush your teeth with this unflouridated tooth power that is typically issued to prisoners. If you couldn’t afford your own soap, they made you use a really harsh type that was produced on the hospital grounds, had a medicinal smell, looked like a brick with sharp corners, and had "N. Y." stamped into it. We kids called it “state soap.” This, the "low-foam detergent" that they also made on the grounds, and the cleaning solvents we had to use when we were forced to do our daily “ward work” all combined to produce a unique industrial smell which, even if you were blind would remind you when you first got back from a “vacation” home that you weren’t home.
Sincerely,
Timothy D
Sorry to bother you two again, but I have yet a few more examples of how we were treated that should clarify just what went on there in finer detail:
Believe it or not, we were never given regularly scheduled psychotherapeutic appointments with the psychiatrist that was in charge of our building. Whenever I asked the head ward nurse about when I could see Dr. Lenic or Dr. Sarmiento privately in his office, I was always told “You can talk to the doctor when he makes his rounds.”
But when he did so and I asked him the same question, his reply was always “Whenever I’m up here, that’s my office.” During my last year there, when Dr. Sarmiento would have group discussions with all of us on the ward, they would only focus on how we were getting along and about ward priviledges. No efforts were made by these doctors whatsoever to start up programs that were more geared towards meeting the needs of the individual resident (except for when I was allowed to take a hospital bus to Cheney to take a typing class) and almost none of the dehumanizing treatments imposed on us at Hillcrest were ever changed. Their version of plan B, for the most part, was simply to forcefeed plan A. Also, if any of our problems resulted from or were intensified by how our families treated us, they would never talk with the entire family in an effort to correct this. Their philosophy was that responsibility for rehabilitation rested entirely with the patient, no matter how the procedures, staff or family drove the patient crazy.
Oh, one more thing. I’m surprised that nothing was mentioned in your interview about the incident that happened at Cheney where two of the ward attendants were arrested and almost put in prison for killing a patient while sitting on him in order to restrain him. When these two workers were brought to trial, H. R. S. H.’s defense team was so good that they were acquitted and were right back on the job. All of this serves as testament to the fact that we live in a country where acquittals can be bought (like with O. J. Simpson) and what I honestly think is the greatest lesson to have come out of the 20th century: No school, hospital, church, branch of government, or any institution devised by man can ever again be completely trusted to function in the best interest of man. All such institutions must be counter-policed by the very people they are employed to serve or supervise, as well as their loved ones, and we can’t afford to let posterity forget this.
Sorry, but now that the awful memories of how we were treated at Hillcrest are flowing out like a waterfall, I still have a few more of them to share with you and your associate
in the hopes that if you two update this pod cast, it can be done with greater clarity.
When they’d wake us up every morning, they’d turn the bright lights on when they yelled out “Everybody up, rise and shine!” and it’s a miracle that none of us went blind on account of it. For those who didn’t want to get up, they’d pull the sheets right off of us and rub those large, cold, iron keys against our feet. Though we did get 3 meals a day, it was all bland, unappetizing institutional food that was made over at Ross Pavilion and shipped to us on this “food truck.” If you wanted, you could work in the dining hall but the work all consisted of serving and clean up and they never taught us how to cook. Just like with all that ward work we were forced to do, we were never given any spending allowance in return for it. If any of us kids were nauseated by the ill table manners of the other kids, the attendants would just say something to us like “Slurp back at ‘em.” and would never let us change tables. So the only thing that they taught us with regard to manners and decency were simply to put up with everything and to be submissive to those in authority. With regard to the grossly substandard education we got, they didn’t even give grades. The excuse that they would give us would be “Oh you need an awful lot of kids to make grades.” But the problem with that argument was that if grades were always given in one-room school school houses throughout history, why wouldn’t that mean all the teachers needed there were the right materials such as updated textbooks and training? Instead of teaching us things like negative and positive numbers, geometry, and all of the things that characterized the “new math” curriculum the public schools converted to in the 1960’s, they would overkill on basic arithmetical skills and bore us to the point where even if you did have something like A. D. H. D., it only worsened it given that you were doing all this monotonous work, and getting nowhere with it. Back on the ward, when any of us kids would ask the attendants why we were being treated like animals by being forced to stand in line with a bunch of naked kids and having to take those group showers, they’d simply say “You act like animals, so we’ll treat you like animals.”
So from all of the aforementioned, including what I disclosed in previous blog replies, it should be no wonder why Hillcrest could never be classified as an accredited institution, why it never actually deserved such a title as “school” or "Academy", and that instead of preparing us for possible entrance into higher society, the only thing they prepared us for was a lifetime in institutions such as this one.
By the time I was in Hillcrest, 40 years ago to be exact, there were no more farms, bakeries or slaughterhouses on the grounds (I refuse to refer to the H. R. S. H. grounds as a “campus” because they were not refered to as such back in those days), the baking was all done by unionized state workers, and we patients were all stuck with the remaining dirty work. Our milk products were supplied by Fitchett Bros. Dairy and Pickwick Ice Cream, who were most probably the lowest bidders for the service contract. The ice cream was loaded with artificial additives even though the staff could always afford the more expensive “all natural” products for themselves and THEIR families. Whenever any of us remarked about the occassional oniony taste of the milk, the attendants would say “Oh the cows were probably eating onion grass.” Though there were nice, thoughtful volunteer groups who would set up nice birthday, Christmas, and Easter parties, I remember the last Easter party in 1972 which turned out to be a disaster because someone put salt in the cookies instead of sugar. In spite of this, the staff said we ought to be grateful for the party anyway and we were still forced to clean up after them. To the hospital staff, our feelings meant nothing because we as child patients were viewed as nothing.
To Michael Britt AND Roger Christenfeld:
Now that I have shared all these awful memories, I was wondering if you could please do some more reseach in order to answer some questions I’ve always had about
H. R. S. H.:
1./ Whenever a patient died there, what did the hospital typically do with his or her corpse, particularly if the deceased patient had no remaining family members or ones that actually gave a damn about them? I was told many years ago that H. R. S. H. had its own cemetery, but when I came back many years later after its closing to wander through this ghost town, I could never locate it.
2./ Why in fact were employees of the hospital allowed to live in nice housing that was right on the hospital grounds, and why were some employees even allowed to construct houses of their own on the grounds? Whenever group homes are started up in the community, there are always neighbors who protest this even though they find nothing wrong with the employees and their undisciplined kids invading OUR areas of residence.
3./ When the labor unions finally mandated 8 hour work days and higher wages for the hospital employees, why were they still allowed to keep their on grounds housing instead of evicting them and converting them right at that time into half-way housing for stablized patients or outpatients?
4./ Whenever the sons or daughters of the doctors who lived in beautiful apartments or houses on the H. R. S. H. grounds came of age and were given “coming out to society parties” where many of the other doctors and their spouses would be invited, none of the patients were invited. Why were we discriminated against? Also, whenever an employment anniversary or retirement party would be held for any paid employee, none of the patients were ever invited. Why was this so?
So with all this testimony you have even more evidence to support my previous statement that “H. R. S. H. was run like a medieval manor where the patients were the cerfs.”
Your response to this would be most appreciated.
Four more questions:
5./ Were involuntary sterilizations ever performed at H. R. S. H.?
6./ Aside from simply overseeing the operations at this big hospital, just what did Dr. Cheney & Dr. Snow do for the patients that was of such monumental significance that they would name buildings on the hospital grounds after them?
7./ When did the dehumanizing practice start of cutting the hair short of newly admitted patients who had long hair even if they wanted to keep it long and were capable of taking care of it themselves?
8./ When did it stop?
9./ Where on the hospital grounds were child patients treated before Hillcrest was opened in the early ’60’s? What type of education were they given? When Hillcrest closed in 1973 or 1974, what building were the kids transfered to who could not be placed in community group housing or foster care and whose parents would not or could not take them home? What type of schooling were they given at that point?
10./ For the adolescent patients after 1974 who found state equivalency programs unsatisfactory and refused to take that test, were they allowed to go off the H. R. S. H. grounds to attend a public high school where they could take the N. Y. S. Regents College Preparatory program, be in a yearbook, be in a nice high school graduation ceremony, and have all of the nice frills that kids on the outside of the hospital took for granted?
11./ Prior to 1973, the year when the American Psychiatric Association declared that homosexuality was no longer considered a sexual orientation disorder, how were patients at H. R. S. H. treated who were gay or suspected of being gay or lesbian? Were they subjected to dehumanizing treatment in order to force them to “turn straight”? If so, how soon after the 1973 A. P. A. ruling were the staff at H. R. S. H. forced to leave them alone?
12./ Just down the hill from Hillcrest stood a building we kids were told was “Cottage 9″. But in either 1970 or 71 is was closed and torn down. What type of patients were housed in “the cottages”?
13./ When you go down the far opposite (north) side of the same hill (where Ross Pavilion was to be exact), go past that underground bomb shelter, and continue north on the same road which leads to Dorsey Street, you go past a little beach which we kids were taken to in 1969 and 1970 to swim in, but was closed that fall, never re-opened, and subsequently turned to swamp. I was told by some friends that the hospital wanted to use this beach to discharge waste, and by others that it would be used to dump expired patient medication. Which answer is correct?
Reading Mr. D’s reports of his time in the HRSH adolescent unit, I am sad that his stay was so unpleasant, happy that the scene has improved dramatically in these 40 years, and grateful for his insights. I agree strongly that such first-hand accounts are vital. The major advance in public psychiatry in our time, I believe, is not the improvement in medication but the empowerment of clients and their families in setting goals and selecting treatments. But therapeutic progress has always hinged on thoughtful attention to the patient’s wishes and unfailing respect for our common humanity.
Unfortunately I cannot answer Mr. D’s specific questions because they concern a time before my own experience. I can say that HRSH never had its own cemetery, and the total grounds are now much reduced, with no staff housing, and no clients under age 18. The brutal practices he cites are now unknown and social events are less invidious, with many parties including both patients and staff.
Still, this is not a country club but a hospital, where the goal is to restore patients to a rewarding life. That means there is an ethical tension between our need to treat patients as autonomous and our responsibility to care for them, sometimes involving more control than is comfortable. There also remains, as Tim experienced, a conflict between the requirements of an organization and the desires of its individual members, a conflict especially troublesome in congregate living situations. Army barracks and college dorms can also seem impersonal and regimented. Catering to common denominators usually means the food won’t be very tasty.
We’re still imperfect here, much better than we were, still striving to improve. In all, it’s certainly better to be at liberty, and I wish Mr. D well.
Yes there was a potters field. It was next to Ross Pav and when they put in a housing unit on Dorsey lane they found the bodies.
so tim you are right i worked there for 20 years and yes the doctors did live in the nice houses and they used staff for house keeping and a lot of things went on there. Thats why the place is haunted. A lot of angry patents who were used for experiments on drugs and our 8th floor surgerys so tim stick to your guns. its improved but has a long way to to.