McLean Hospital
Encyclopedia
McLean Hospital is a psychiatric hospital
in Belmont
, Massachusetts
.
It is noted for its clinical staff expertise and ground-breaking neuroscience research. It is also known for the large number of famous people who have been treated there, including mathematician John Nash
, singer-songwriters James Taylor
and Ray Charles
, poet Sylvia Plath
, and authors Susanna Kaysen
and David Foster Wallace
.
McLean maintains the world's largest neuroscientific
and psychiatric research program in a private hospital. It is the largest psychiatric facility of Harvard Medical School
, an affiliate of Massachusetts General Hospital
and a member of Partners HealthCare
, which also owns Brigham and Women's Hospital
.
McLean was founded in 1811 in a section of Charlestown, Massachusetts
, that is now a part of neighboring Somerville, Massachusetts
. Originally named Asylum for the Insane, it was the first institution organized by a cooperation of prominent Bostonians who were concerned about homeless mentally ill persons "abounding on the streets and by-ways in and about Boston." It was built around a Charles Bulfinch
mansion, which became the hospital's administrative building; most of the other hospital buildings were completed by 1818. The institution was later given the name The McLean Asylum for the Insane in honor of one of its earliest benefactors, John McLean, who granted it enough money to build several such hospitals at the 1818 cost. A portrait of McLean now hangs in the present Administration Building, along with other paintings that were once displayed in the original hospital. In 1892, the facility was renamed McLean Hospital in recognition of broader views on the treatment of mental illness.
In 1895 the campus moved to Waverley Oaks Hill in Belmont, Massachusetts
. The civil engineer Joseph Curtis and Frederick Law Olmsted
, the renowned landscape architect
who also conceptualized the Emerald Necklace
public spaces of Boston, New York's Central Park
, and Hartford's Institute of Living, were consulted on the selection of the hospital site. The move was necessitated by changes in Charlestown, including new rail lines and other distracting development. Olmsted was eventually treated at McLean, but there is no evidence that he was responsible for the design of the grounds. Once hospital construction began, Curtis was hired by the hospital and supervised the landscape work for many years.
In the 1990s, facing falling revenue in a changing health care industry, the hospital drafted a plan to sell a percentage of its grounds for development by the Town of Belmont. The sale of the land became the root of a divisive and somewhat baroque political debate in the town during the late 1990s. Ultimately a plan to preserve some of Olmsted's original open space and to allow the town to develop mixed residential and commercial real estate prevailed over a plan to create only high-end residential development. The deal was finalized in 2005 and land development was well underway at the end of the year.
McLean is known widely for its treatment of teens, most specifically its treatment of BPD
using Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
developed by Marsha M. Linehan
.
McLean is presently led by Scott L. Rauch, President and Psychiatrist in Chief, who is known for his innovative work using brain imaging methods to study psychiatric dysfunction.
McLean is differentiated from its New England peers (such as The Institute of Living and the Brattleboro Retreat
) by its combination of teaching, treatment, and research. Most other facilities focus on one of these priorities.
's Gracefully Insane: Life and Death Inside America's Premier Mental Hospital (ISBN 1-891620-75-4). Memoirs of time spent within McLean's walls include Sylvia Plath
's novel The Bell Jar
and Susanna Kaysen
's Girl, Interrupted
(ISBN 0-679-74604-8), which was made into a movie
starring Winona Ryder
and Angelina Jolie
. Samuel Shem's roman à clef
Mount Misery tells a story inspired at least in part by the author's experiences at McLean. The 1994 Under Observation: Life Inside A Mental Hospital (ISBN 0-14-025147-2, ISBN 0-395-63413-X) by Lisa Berger and Alexander Vuckovic uses some fictional techniques (composite character
s, etc.) to describe some of the typical events at Mclean. James Taylor
's "Knockin' 'Round the Zoo" recalls his stay at McLean as a teenager. Douglas S. Holder, who ran poetry groups in inpatient wards for over a decade, published Poems of Boston and Just Beyond: From the Back Bay to the Back Ward.
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
in Belmont
Belmont, Massachusetts
Belmont is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. The population was 24,729 at the 2010 census.- History :Belmont was founded on March 18, 1859 by former citizens of, and land from the bordering towns of Watertown, to the south; Waltham, to the west; and Arlington, then...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
.
It is noted for its clinical staff expertise and ground-breaking neuroscience research. It is also known for the large number of famous people who have been treated there, including mathematician John Nash
John Forbes Nash
John Forbes Nash, Jr. is an American mathematician whose works in game theory, differential geometry, and partial differential equations have provided insight into the forces that govern chance and events inside complex systems in daily life...
, singer-songwriters James Taylor
James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....
and Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
, poet Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...
, and authors Susanna Kaysen
Susanna Kaysen
-Life:Susanna Kaysen was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is the daughter of economist Carl Kaysen, a professor at MIT and former advisor to President John F. Kennedy, and his wife Annette Neutra Kaysen. Kaysen has one sister and is divorced...
and David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace was an American author of novels, essays, and short stories, and a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California...
.
McLean maintains the world's largest neuroscientific
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
and psychiatric research program in a private hospital. It is the largest psychiatric facility of Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
, an affiliate of Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital is a teaching hospital and biomedical research facility in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts...
and a member of Partners HealthCare
Partners HealthCare
Partners HealthCare is a non-profit organization that owns several hospitals in Massachusetts, primarily in the Boston area. Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital founded the organization in 1994...
, which also owns Brigham and Women's Hospital
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Brigham and Women's Hospital is the largest hospital of the Longwood Medical and Academic Area in Boston, Massachusetts. It is directly adjacent to Harvard Medical School of which it is the second largest teaching affiliate with 793 beds...
.
History
Charlestown, Massachusetts
Charlestown is a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, and is located on a peninsula north of downtown Boston. Charlestown was originally a separate town and the first capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; it became a city in 1847 and was annexed by Boston on January 5, 1874...
, that is now a part of neighboring Somerville, Massachusetts
Somerville, Massachusetts
Somerville is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, located just north of Boston. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 75,754 and was the most densely populated municipality in New England. It is also the 17th most densely populated incorporated place in...
. Originally named Asylum for the Insane, it was the first institution organized by a cooperation of prominent Bostonians who were concerned about homeless mentally ill persons "abounding on the streets and by-ways in and about Boston." It was built around a Charles Bulfinch
Charles Bulfinch
Charles Bulfinch was an early American architect, and has been regarded by many as the first native-born American to practice architecture as a profession....
mansion, which became the hospital's administrative building; most of the other hospital buildings were completed by 1818. The institution was later given the name The McLean Asylum for the Insane in honor of one of its earliest benefactors, John McLean, who granted it enough money to build several such hospitals at the 1818 cost. A portrait of McLean now hangs in the present Administration Building, along with other paintings that were once displayed in the original hospital. In 1892, the facility was renamed McLean Hospital in recognition of broader views on the treatment of mental illness.
In 1895 the campus moved to Waverley Oaks Hill in Belmont, Massachusetts
Belmont, Massachusetts
Belmont is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. The population was 24,729 at the 2010 census.- History :Belmont was founded on March 18, 1859 by former citizens of, and land from the bordering towns of Watertown, to the south; Waltham, to the west; and Arlington, then...
. The civil engineer Joseph Curtis and Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...
, the renowned landscape architect
Landscape architect
A landscape architect is a person involved in the planning, design and sometimes direction of a landscape, garden, or distinct space. The professional practice is known as landscape architecture....
who also conceptualized the Emerald Necklace
Emerald Necklace
The Emerald Necklace consists of an chain of parks linked by parkways and waterways in Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts. It gets its name from the way the planned chain appears to hang from the "neck" of the Boston peninsula, although it was never fully constructed.-Overview:The Necklace...
public spaces of Boston, New York's Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
, and Hartford's Institute of Living, were consulted on the selection of the hospital site. The move was necessitated by changes in Charlestown, including new rail lines and other distracting development. Olmsted was eventually treated at McLean, but there is no evidence that he was responsible for the design of the grounds. Once hospital construction began, Curtis was hired by the hospital and supervised the landscape work for many years.
In the 1990s, facing falling revenue in a changing health care industry, the hospital drafted a plan to sell a percentage of its grounds for development by the Town of Belmont. The sale of the land became the root of a divisive and somewhat baroque political debate in the town during the late 1990s. Ultimately a plan to preserve some of Olmsted's original open space and to allow the town to develop mixed residential and commercial real estate prevailed over a plan to create only high-end residential development. The deal was finalized in 2005 and land development was well underway at the end of the year.
McLean is known widely for its treatment of teens, most specifically its treatment of BPD
BPD
BPD may refer to:*BPD , British cyclecar manufactured in 1913;*Banco Popular Dominicano, the third major private bank in the Dominican Republic;...
using Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
Dialectical behavioral therapy
Dialectical behavior therapy is a system of therapy originally developed by Marsha M. Linehan, a psychology researcher at the University of Washington, to treat people with borderline personality disorder...
developed by Marsha M. Linehan
Marsha M. Linehan
Marsha M. Linehan is an American psychologist and author. Linehan is a Professor of Psychology, Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and BehavioralSciences at the University of Washington and Director of the Behavioral Research and TherapyClinics...
.
McLean is presently led by Scott L. Rauch, President and Psychiatrist in Chief, who is known for his innovative work using brain imaging methods to study psychiatric dysfunction.
McLean is differentiated from its New England peers (such as The Institute of Living and the Brattleboro Retreat
Brattleboro Retreat
The Brattleboro Retreat is a private, not-for-profit mental health and addictions hospital that provides comprehensive inpatient, outpatient, partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient services for children, adolescents and adults....
) by its combination of teaching, treatment, and research. Most other facilities focus on one of these priorities.
Artistic works inspired by McLean
One popular and anecdotal history of McLean is Alex BeamAlex Beam
Alex Beam is an American writer and journalist, who is currently a columnist for The Boston Globe.-Biography:Beam grew up in Washington, D.C., as his father Jacob D. Beam was a diplomat. Beam attended Phillips Exeter Academy, where he was Foreign Correspondent for the twice-weekly school...
's Gracefully Insane: Life and Death Inside America's Premier Mental Hospital (ISBN 1-891620-75-4). Memoirs of time spent within McLean's walls include Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...
's novel The Bell Jar
The Bell Jar
The Bell Jar is American writer and poet Sylvia Plath's only novel, which was originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963. The novel is semi-autobiographical with the names of places and people changed...
and Susanna Kaysen
Susanna Kaysen
-Life:Susanna Kaysen was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is the daughter of economist Carl Kaysen, a professor at MIT and former advisor to President John F. Kennedy, and his wife Annette Neutra Kaysen. Kaysen has one sister and is divorced...
's Girl, Interrupted
Girl, Interrupted
Girl, Interrupted is a best-selling 1993 memoir by American author Susanna Kaysen, relating her experiences as a young woman in a psychiatric hospital in the 1960s after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder...
(ISBN 0-679-74604-8), which was made into a movie
Girl, Interrupted (film)
Girl, Interrupted is a 1999 drama film about a teenager's 18-month stay at a mental institution, starring Winona Ryder, Brittany Murphy, Angelina Jolie, Whoopi Goldberg and Vanessa Redgrave, with Jolie winning an Academy Award for her performance....
starring Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder is an American actress. She made her film debut in the 1986 film Lucas. Ryder's first significant role came in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice as a goth teenager, which won her critical and commercial recognition...
and Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie is an American actress. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011. Jolie is noted for promoting humanitarian causes as a Goodwill Ambassador for the...
. Samuel Shem's roman à clef
Roman à clef
Roman à clef or roman à clé , French for "novel with a key", is a phrase used to describe a novel about real life, overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction...
Mount Misery tells a story inspired at least in part by the author's experiences at McLean. The 1994 Under Observation: Life Inside A Mental Hospital (ISBN 0-14-025147-2, ISBN 0-395-63413-X) by Lisa Berger and Alexander Vuckovic uses some fictional techniques (composite character
Composite character
A composite character is a character composed of two or more individuals, appearing in a fictional or non-fictional work. Two fictional characters are often combined into one upon adaptation of a work from one medium to another, as in the film adaptation of a novel...
s, etc.) to describe some of the typical events at Mclean. James Taylor
James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....
's "Knockin' 'Round the Zoo" recalls his stay at McLean as a teenager. Douglas S. Holder, who ran poetry groups in inpatient wards for over a decade, published Poems of Boston and Just Beyond: From the Back Bay to the Back Ward.
Facts about the hospital
- McLean Hospital is currently ranked 3rd among all psychiatric hospitals in the country according to U.S. News and World Report.http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/best-hospitals/rankings/specreppsyc.htm
- McLean ranks among the top 15 hospitals worldwide receiving National Institutes of HealthNational Institutes of HealthThe National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
grant support. - It is home to the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, the largest "brain bank" in the world.
- The hospital developed and implemented national health screenings for alcohol, depression and memory disorders.
- McLean Hospital is a teaching hospital for Harvard University Residents and the continued development of Harvard faculty.
- The Cole Resource CenterCole Resource CenterThe Jonathan O. Cole Mental Health Consumer Resource Center is a consumer to consumer mental health organization. It was named for Jonathan O. Cole, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and a senior consultant in psychopharmacology at McLean Hospital, and the founder of the...
, a mental health consumerMental health consumerA mental health consumer is a person who is under treatment for a psychiatric illness or disorder. The term was coined by people who use mental health services in an attempt to empower those with mental health issues, usually considered a marginalized segment of society...
resource and advocacy center, is located at the hospital.
Famous patients
- Actor Billy WestBilly WestWilliam Richard "Billy" West is an American voice actor. Born in Detroit but raised in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, Billy launched his career in the early 1980s performing daily comedic routines on Boston's WBCN. He left the radio station to work on the short-lived revival...
- Athlete Ricky WilliamsRicky WilliamsErrick Lynne "Ricky" Williams, Jr. is an American football running back for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League. He was drafted by the New Orleans Saints fifth overall in the 1999 NFL Draft...
- Athlete Brandon MarshallBrandon Marshall-2006:Before the regular season even began, Marshall suffered a slight tear to his PCL in a pre-season game against the Detroit Lions. Although the injury sidelined him for a couple of weeks, he was able to return and play 15 games during the regular season. Marshall had a total of 20 catches, 309...
- Musician James TaylorJames TaylorJames Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....
- Musician Livingston TaylorLivingston TaylorLivingston Taylor is an American singer-songwriter, born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He attended the Westtown School in Pennsylvania...
- Musician Kate TaylorKate TaylorKate Taylor is an American folk singer, originally from Boston, Massachusetts.-Biography:Kate was born in Boston and grew up with her four brothers in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where her father was Dean of the medical school at the University of North Carolina...
- Musician Ray CharlesRay CharlesRay Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
- Musician Steven TylerSteven TylerSteven Tyler is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, best known as the frontman and lead singer of the Boston-based rock band Aerosmith, in which he also plays the harmonica, and occasional piano and percussion. He is known as the "Demon of Screamin'", due to his high screams...
- Musician Rick JamesRick JamesJames Ambrose Johnson, Jr. , better known by his stage name Rick James, was an American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. James was a popular performer in the late 1970s and 1980s, scoring four number-one hits on the U.S. R&B charts performing in the genres of funk and R&B...
- Musician Marianne FaithfullMarianne FaithfullMarianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....
- Landscape architect Frederick Law OlmstedFrederick Law OlmstedFrederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...
- Poet Anne SextonAnne SextonAnne Sexton was an American poet, known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967...
- Poet Robert LowellRobert LowellRobert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
- Poet Sylvia PlathSylvia PlathSylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...
- Mathematician John NashJohn Forbes NashJohn Forbes Nash, Jr. is an American mathematician whose works in game theory, differential geometry, and partial differential equations have provided insight into the forces that govern chance and events inside complex systems in daily life...
- Writer David Foster WallaceDavid Foster WallaceDavid Foster Wallace was an American author of novels, essays, and short stories, and a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California...
- Writer Susanna KaysenSusanna Kaysen-Life:Susanna Kaysen was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is the daughter of economist Carl Kaysen, a professor at MIT and former advisor to President John F. Kennedy, and his wife Annette Neutra Kaysen. Kaysen has one sister and is divorced...
- Writer Luanne RiceLuanne RiceLuanne Rice is the bestselling American author of twenty-five novels. She often writes about nature and the sea, and many of her novels deal with love and family....
- Scholar John StrugnellJohn StrugnellJohn Strugnell, was born in Barnet, Hertfordshire, UK. At the age of 23 he became the youngest member of the team of scholars led by Roland de Vaux, formed in 1954 to edit the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jerusalem...
- Zelda FitzgeraldZelda FitzgeraldZelda Sayre Fitzgerald , born Zelda Sayre in Montgomery, Alabama, was an American novelist and the wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was an icon of the 1920s—dubbed by her husband "the first American Flapper"...
, wife of writer F. Scott FitzgeraldF. Scott FitzgeraldFrancis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost... - TranscendentalistTranscendentalismTranscendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the 1830s and 1840s in the New England region of the United States as a protest against the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian...
Jones VeryJones VeryJones Very was an American essayist, poet, clergymen, and mystic associated with the American Transcendentalism movement. He was known as a scholar of William Shakespeare and many of his poems were Shakespearean sonnets... - Scientist Charles Thomas JacksonCharles Thomas JacksonCharles Thomas Jackson was an American physician and scientist who was active in medicine, chemistry, mineralogy, and geology.- Life and work :...
- AtheniaSS AtheniaThe S.S. Athenia was the first British ship to be sunk by Nazi Germany in World War II.-Description:Athenia was built by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Ltd., and was launched at Govan, Scotland in 1923. She was built for Anchor-Donaldson Ltd.'s route between Britain and Canada...
survivor Berthe Louise Quirin Buchanan - Boxer Michael "Big Mikey" Hollander