Living with Mental Illness: A Study in East London

The Mental Health Act of 1959 marked a turning point in national policy on mental illness. Originally published in 1962, this book reports a sociological survey of a group of people from an East London borough who entered a large mental hospital in 1956 and 1957, at the very time when a Royal Commission was preparing the report upon which the new legislation was based.

Living with Mental Illness shows what happened to these mental patients and to their relatives, and tells of their reactions...