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Werke von William A. Decker

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This is Dr. Decker's followup to Asylum for the Insane, his book about the Kalamazoo State Hospital. This book examines the history of the Traverse City asylum, and makes some effort to put it into context.

This book's better than the Kalamazoo book. There's less emphasis on buildings, for one thing, and the author does a far better job of identifying and describing the political context which led to the construction of Michigan's state hospitals and in which their staff members worked. The improvements seem to stem largely from two circumstances--Decker had learned not to repeat some of his first book's mistakes, and he didn't know this material nearly as well as he knew the Kalamazoo history.

That lack of familiarity cuts both ways, of course. Because his sources for this book are heavily concentrated in the early twentieth century and the 1970s, those periods get more attention than they probably deserve. Moreover, the research-material gaps occasionally result in speculative reconstruction of matters one might have preferred to see documented. On the other hand, his inability to fill in all the missing details freed up room for discussion of the changing political environment, something he handles surprisingly deftly and objectively. All in all, this book has a better arrangement than the earlier volume.

As with the original volume, this book's chapters devoted to treatment are surprisingly interesting, and justify the book's existence. This is clearly material the author's known and pondered upon for his entire adult life.

Despite the improvements, this effort shares many of the Kalamazoo book's weaknesses. There's an annoying amount of repetition. There are unexplained issues just taken for granted--for instance, the apparently-inexplicable numbering system imposed on the campus buildings is not adequately discussed. And two late chapters are just unstructured fragments which add little or no value.

This book ends with an argument that the decisions behind the 1970s restructuring of the state's mental health programs--in particular, the near-total deinstitutionalization of those efforts--was a poorly-considered mistake. There's a similar chapter at the end of his first book, but this effort is more explicit.

I'm hoping his next volume--on the Newberry facility--discusses the strengths and weaknesses, and successes and failures, of Michigan's state hospitals. Decker's clearly got the data--and the knowledge--to present that information. I'd really like to see it.





This review has also been published on a dabbler's journal.
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½
 
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joeldinda | 1 weitere Rezension | Apr 14, 2013 |
Wish it had more pictures -- also, it was an ungainly size.
 
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picardyrose | 1 weitere Rezension | Aug 15, 2011 |
Although it's flawed, this is an interesting and fact-filled book. Probably there's too much about the asylum's buildings--the book presents reasons and dates of construction, provides perhaps-too-detailed descriptions, describes repurposings of buildings as the hospital evolved, and mentions the final fate for virtually every building the institution ever built or used. Squeezed into that discussion, of course, are lots of details about the asylum's history and purpose.

There are also sections directly discussing treatment, and changing treatment practice. Much of this is surprisingly interesting. And there's a great chapter on the hospital's program to treat children and adolescents; part of the interest is the author's direct involvement in the development of the program.

What the book lacks is an explicit argument that the asylum's activities were worthwhile; Decker just assumes we agree that to be true, though he occasionally hints at the debating points which might be made to support the opinion (or to demonstrate its truth). There are occasional, slight, mentions of the hospital's negative image in the Kalamazoo community; since the author clearly thought that a problem, and seems to take some of the responsibility, it would be nice to have seen a chapter discussing those issues. It would be similarly useful to have a more explicit discussion of the state's political leadership's changing view of the state's mental hospital system.

Decker's not a great prose stylist, and there's a awful lot of unnecessary redundancy. I see no evidence of an editor; one could have helped. The last chapter, which argues that we've gone too far with our deinstitutionalization programs, badly needed a rewrite.

There are several appendices, all useful; I particularly liked the series of maps demonstrating the evolving layout of the hospital grounds.

All that said: Worth reading if you're interested in either the Kalamazoo asylum or the history of mental health treatment in America. There's lots of interesting material here, despite some issues in its presentation. I'm planning to read Decker's book about the Traverse City asylum, where he never worked; I expect to learn interesting things.

This review has also been published on a dabbler's journal.
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joeldinda | Mar 8, 2011 |

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Werke
3
Mitglieder
13
Beliebtheit
#774,335
Bewertung
½ 3.4
Rezensionen
3
ISBNs
3