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McLean Hospital (pronounced 'Mc-Lane'; also known as Somerville Asylum or Charlestown Asylum) 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,¹ poets Robert Lowell² and Sylvia Plath,³⁴ singer-songwriters James Taylor⁵² and Ray Charles,⁶² and author Susanna Kaysen.⁵².

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.

History

Map of the McLean Insane Asylum from an 1884 atlas of Somerville, MA

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." As such, it predates its sibling co-foundation, the Massachusetts General Hospital, by some seven years. 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 from Charlestown to Waverley Oaks Hill in Belmont, Massachusetts. This was upon the advice of Frederick Law Olmsted, the renowned consulting landscape architect who also conceptualized the Emerald Necklace public spaces of Boston, New York's Central Park, and Hartford's Institute of Living. The move was necessitated by changes in Charlestown, including new rail lines and other distracting development. Olmsted, who was eventually treated at McLean, created a therapeutic park landscape around the hospital buildings, which have been on this site ever since.

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 presently led by Scott L. Rauch[1], 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 for Living and the Brattleboro Retreat) 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 Beam'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 á 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 characters, 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.⁵⁷ A book of poetry with poems by Douglas S. Holder who ran poetry groups on inpatient wards for over a decade. A pick of the month in the "Small Press Review." "Poems of Boston and Just Beyond: The Back Bay to the Back Ward" by Doug Holder isbn=(0967813123)Ibbetson St. Press-1998

Facts about the hospital

• McLean Hospital is currently ranked 4th among all psychiatric hospitals in the country according to U.S. News and World Report.[2]
• McLean ranks among the top 15 hospitals worldwide receiving National Institutes of Health 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 treats mental illness.
• McLean Hospital is a teaching hospital for Harvard University Residents and the continued development of Harvard faculty.

Famous patients

• Actor, Singer, Dancer David Janett
• Musician James Taylor
• Musician Livingston Taylor
• Musician Kate Taylor
• Musician Ray Charles
• Musician Steven Tyler
• Musician Rick James
• Musician Marianne Faithfull
• Landscape Architect Frederick Law Olmsted
• Poet Anne Sexton
• Poet Robert Lowell
• Poet Sylvia Plath
• Mathematician John Nash
• Writer Susanna Kaysen
• Scholar John Strugnell
• Zelda Fitzgerald (wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald)
• Transcendentalist Jones Very
• Scientist Charles Thomas Jackson

Resources

• McLean Hospital website
• Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center

References

1. ^ "Interview with John Nash: My Experience with Mental Illness". PBS.org. Retrieved on 2007-02-07.
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Sale, Jonathan (May 4, 2006). "Ray Charles played piano all the time", The Independent. Retrieved on 7 February 2007. 
3. ^ Maroda, Karen (November 29, 2004). "Sylvia and Ruth". Salon.com. Retrieved on 2007-02-07.
4. ^ "About the Author - Chronology of Plath's Life". The Bell Jar. CliffsNotes. Retrieved on 2007-02-07.
5. ^ ^{a b c} Beam, Alex (November 26, 2001). "Shrink Wrapped Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll Were Regular Features of Life at McLean Psychiatric Hospital in Belmont", The Boston Globe. Retrieved on 12 April 2008. 
6. ^ "Ray Charles Plays the "Harvard Club"". Harvard Magazine (January–February 2002). Retrieved on 2007-02-07.
7. ^ White, Timothy (2001), James Taylor: James Taylor, His Life and Music, p. 16, ISBN 071198803X 

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• This page was last modified on 2 December 2008, at 01:36.

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