It’s no secret that mental health care in North America used to be something very close to torture for those who found themselves in the system. Luckily, governments realized this in the 1980s and ’90s and began to implement reforms and shutter abusive facilities. As a result, many former psychiatric facilities throughout Canada and the United States are easy pickings for daring urban explorers. One explorer and photographer by the handle of Freaktography recently explored one of these old buildings in Ontario, Canada.
Starting in 1870, this property served as Ontario’s central psychiatric hospital.
As you can probably imagine, the treatment for the mentally ill back then was hardly humane.
Those were the days when alcohol was frequently used to keep patients quiet and docile along with painful restraints.
Luckily, eventually the state took over these facilities with the goal of improving the care of the mentally ill.
To give you an idea of the kind of “conditions” that this facility treated and how they treated them, Freaktography took pictures of a collection of cards. Each one features a psychiatric disorder and how it should be treated. Some of these are truly horrifying.
Treatment for orgasmic dysfunction:
Compulsive vomiting:
How to treat homosexuality — talk about archaic…
Apparently impotence was also considered a mental illness back in the day.
Treatment for suicide:
How to treat depression:
Fire-setting? Now that’s a unique condition.
Aversion therapy seems to be a popular treatment method…
I doubt this is something you can cure.
Odds are, the patients just said they were cured.
Now that is some unsettling stuff.
For more photos like these, make sure to follow Freaktography on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
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