In 1905, after suffering a relapse and spending a few months at The Hartford Retreat, Clifford Whittingham Beers elected to write a book about his experiences living with mental illness and being subject to cruel treatment and physical abuse while being institutionalized.
Titled, A Mind That Found Itself, the 1908 autobiography told the story of a young man who had suffered a life full of personal tragedy, leading to feelings of intense anxiety, paranoia and depression. Slowly being engulfed by intrusive thoughts and hallucinations, Beers found himself struggling with suicidal ideation and committment by his well-intentioned family to a series of mental health institutions, each one seemingly worse than the last.
Unique in its presentation of both self-awareness and the difficult reality of working towards recovery; the book paved the way for the American mental hygiene movement and removed the stigma of mental illness among the general public.
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Clifford Whittingham Beers (1876 – 1943) was an author and founder of the American mental hygiene movement and what is known today as Mental Health America. Born in Connecticut, Beers was one of five children all of whom dealt with some variation of mental illness or psychological disorder. After the death of one of his siblings, Beers began to exhibit intense feelings of anxiety and paranoia that would follow him through his adult life and academic career. Although he was able to graduate from Yale in 1897 just three years later he would attempt to end his life, leading to his introduction to mental health institutions. From 1900 – 1903, Beers would have extended stays in multiple private psychiatric hospitals where he both witnessed and experienced physical abuse and extreme medical maltreatment that only exacerbated his symptoms, inspiring his 1908 autobiography, A Mind That Found Itself. Becoming a well-received bestseller, the publication and reception of his book allowed Beers the platform to begin advocating for medical health reform. While Beers ultimately succumbed to his illness and committed suicide in 1943, it is irrefutible that his efforts in the form of mental health opened the doors for these illnesses to be destigmatized to the general public and taken seriously in the medical field.
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