Faculty members gathered on Tuesday for a presentation given by Binghamton University undergraduate fellow Amanda Levine on deinstitutionalization and patient rights of the mentally ill in the late 1960s.
Levine, a senior majoring in philosophy, politics and law, is an undergraduate fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH). Her presentation focused on how patient rights of the mentally ill were affected by health care policy and court decisions in the late 1960s.
According to Levine, a class she took on the depiction of mental illness in literature and film last year resulted in her interest in the subject. She studied the effects of institutionalization on the mentally ill as a result.
“All of these novels focused on patients within mental institutions,” Levine said. “They’re independent, they’re competent, they think, they’re not just sitting there zombified.”
Levine spoke about the historical context of deinstitutionalization, a movement in the 1960s that changed the face of mental health treatment.
“This was essentially a set of policies and practices that led to a change of the treatment of the mentally ill,” she said. “There was a change from long-term hospitalization to short-term.”
According to Levine, the change was not successful.
“The results of this movement were not as ideal as had hoped,” she said. “Many of the patients released in the 1970s ended up either becoming homeless or possibly criminal offenders if they weren’t properly cared for.”
Levine concluded that there’s no proof that patient rights as we conceive them, rights that medical patients have in regard to their care, were a motivation for deinstitutionalization.
“I would say, this also marked the beginning of a change, where patients are no longer just an incidence of disease but also a person with the right to talk about their treatment,” Levine said.
According to Levine, she has been researching for this presentation since June. Levine used mostly primary sources for her research, such as public health reports, relying on the Science Library’s copies of public health reports.
“One of the best things this school has, in the Science Library, is bound copies of public health reports dating from, I’d have to say at least the 1930s and to the present,” Levine said. “You can read what public officials were saying about such and such a thing.”
Levine said she was fascinated by the difference between the motivations for deinstitutionalization and its outcome.
“My project focused on the motivations, but I have done research on the outcomes in the past,” Levine wrote in an email. “My earlier research showed a very different reality from what had been envisioned, so I wanted to see what the doctors and officials (and politicians) originally wanted deinstitutionalization to become.”
Levine is the only undergraduate to give a presentation in the IASH fellow speaker series this semester and the only current undergraduate fellow, according to the Bat-Ami Bar On, director of the IASH.
“We get applications for the fellowships,” Bar On said. “Usually the fellow is a senior, usually with very high grades and they have to have a mentor.”
Levine said she applied for the fellowship, with her presentation in mind, in March. She was offered a place as an undergraduate fellow in April.
Andrew Walkling, a BU professor in art history, English and theater, attended the presentation and is a professor fellow in the IASH.
“It’s actually really stimulating because there are people presenting in all sorts of areas in the humanities and social sciences, we have a different thing each week,” Walkling said.
Walkling enjoyed the presentation and was glad that undergraduates such as Levine are able to become fellows.
“I thought it was fantastic,” Walkling said. “One of the things that’s really nice about this institute is that it’s not just for the professors. It gives students who are really pursuing an interesting project an opportunity to engage, with not just a single faculty adviser, but with people who are from around the University.”