Psychiatric hospital

A psychiatric hospital (also called a mental hospital, mental ward, asylum, and occasionally insane asylum , funny farm) is a hospital specialising in the treatment of persons with mental illness. Psychiatric wards differ only in that they are a unit of a larger hospital.

Anti-psychiatry objections to mental hospitals

Some observers, notably psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz, have objected to calling mental hospitals "hospitals" (see anti-psychiatry). Lawrence Stevens has described mental hospitals as "jails."

Related Topics:
Thomas Szasz - Anti-psychiatry

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In particular, anti-psychiatry activists have advocated for the abolition of long-term hospitals for the criminally insane on the grounds that the insanity defence should not be permitted, and those confined to such institutions should be incarcerated in a regular prison instead, others on the grounds that the inmates' confinement to these "hospitals" punishes them for crimes of which they have been judged not guilty, and others on various other grounds.

Related Topics:
Anti-psychiatry - Not guilty

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