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Description

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McLean Hospital is a comprehensive psychiatric hospital committed to providing easy access to superior quality costeffective mental health services in the Boston area Massachusetts and beyond McLean Hospital is accredited by the The Joint Commission TJC licensed by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health DPH Massachusetts Department of Mental Health DMH and certified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services CMS

Since 1811 McLean Hospital has been a world leader in the treatment of mental illness and chemical dependency research into the cause of mental illness and the training of generations of mental health care providers

McLean Hospital is an affiliate of Massachusetts General Hospital and a member of the Partners HealthCare System Inc which allows for comprehensive coordination of medical and psychiatric services A major teaching facility of Harvard Medical School McLean Hospital maintains the largest program of research in neuroscience and psychiatry of any private psychiatric hospital in the United States A large program of clinical trials for new psychopharmacological agents allows patients access to many experimental medications before they are generally available

Major clinical programs at McLean Hospital address a broad range of psychiatric illnesses including depression bipolar and psychotic disorders mood and anxiety disorders alcohol and drug abuse dissociative disorders Alzheimers disease and other geriatric illnesses and child and adolescent psychiatric disorders Each program offers access to a full continuum of care including acute inpatient care acute residential care partial hospitalization continuing residential care options and outpatient services McLeans multidisciplinary team responds to each patients situation with a commitment to individualized treatment that may include individual psychotherapy group therapy psychopharmacology and rehabilitation services

McLean Hospital Mission Statement
McLean Hospital is a comprehensive mental health care system committed to providing a full range of high quality cost effective mental health services to our patients their families and the larger community

The Hospital is dedicated to training mental health professionals to supporting basic and clinical research to understand the causes of mental illnesses and to developing effective new means for their prevention and treatment

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History

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McLean Hospital A Brief History from Charlestown to Belmont Mass
McLean Hospital was founded on Feb 25 1811 through a charter granted by the Massachusetts Legislature for the quotMassachusetts General Hospital Corporationquot From its inception the Corporation intended to treat both physical and mental illnesses with a separate facility for each Fundraising campaigns were held between 1812 and 1816 and a majority of the contributors earmarked their donations for the establishment of a facility to treat mental illnesses Consequently more than 18 acres of the former Joseph Barrell country estate located about two miles outside of Boston in Charlestown Mass later Somerville Mass was purchased in December 1816 The Barrell mansion which would become home to the Superintendent of the hospital and his family as well as the central administration building had been designed by the renowned architect Charles Bulfinch in 1792 Bulfinch and his understudy Mathew Parris were instrumental in the adaptation of the mansion to its new purpose and the design of additional wings as patient living quarters

McLean Hospital was first known as the quotAsylum for the Insanequot a division of the Massachusetts General Hospital The Asylum opened on Oct 1 1818 and admitted its first patient on Oct 6 1818 Following treatment reforms originating in France with Dr Philippe Pinel and in England with Quaker William Tuke the Asylum followed the principles of quotmoral treatmentquot both in its choice of the country setting and in the care of its patients The Asylums first superintendent Rufus Wyman MD was the first physician appointed to such a post in America

When the Asylum opened in 1818 it was the first hospital in New England and only the fourth special institution for the treatment of the mentally ill in America In June of 1826 the Asylum was renamed quotThe McLean Asylum for the Insanequot in honor of John McLean a Boston merchant who bequeathed 25000 and left a residuary legacy of more than 90000 to the Asylum In 1844 13 Asylum superintendents from the Eastern Seaboard including McLeans Luther V Bell MD 18371856 and 18571858 founded the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane now known as the American Psychiatric Association

In the 1840s 1850s and early 1860s the McLean Asylum in Somerville slowly lost its tranquil environment deemed so important in the treatment of mentally ill patients The Asylum had grown in size including its number of patients buildings and acreage The railroads encroached on the land adjacent to the Asylum and by 1872 two tracks cut through the grounds From 1872 through 1874 the Trustee Committee on New Sites for the Asylum separately commissioned the now famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and a local civil engineer Joseph Curtis to conduct site surveys and to report on a suitable site for the building of a new Asylum In 1875 the Trustees based upon the Committee on New Sites recommendation of July 18 1873 purchased 107 acres on Wellington Hill in Belmont from the Waverley Land Company While Olmsteds involvement after 1875 cannot be documented Joseph Curtis involvement in the development of the landscape and building arrangement continued through project completion and into the next century

Superintendent Edward Cowles MD 18791904 was intimately involved in the planning and construction of the new Belmont site The Trustees and Dr Cowles agreed that the campus should be developed and constructed according to a quotcottage planquot which called for the erection of a number of cottages where individual patients received care surrounding a large administration building According to Dr Cowles the cottage plan was intended to create a residential rather than an institutional effect for patients

In 1892 at Dr Cowles request the McLean Asylum was renamed the McLean Hospital quotin recognition of the present broader views upon the subject of insanity and its treatmentquot In that same year construction began at the Belmont site In April 1895 the first patients were transferred from the Asylum in Somerville to Belmont Exactly 77 years from the date of the opening of the original Asylum the new McLean Hospital opened on Oct 1 1895