Man to Man (Mental Health Film Board, 1954)

Warm sympathy and human understanding are powerful instruments in helping mental health patients; this is the inherent message of this film. This documentary is focused primarily on the relationship between two people: an elderly man who cannot feed himself and will not respond when approached, and a psychiatric aide (attendant) who refused to be discouraged even though help for the patient seems hopeless. Genuine suspense is achieved as the aide, with infinite patience and honest compassion, wins the confidence of the patient. The team approach of the hospital staff and glimpses of ward life and hospital routine are shown. The importance of the aide in hospital treatment is emphasized. Film shot at Fairfield State Hospital, Newton, Connecticut.
Learn more about this film and search its transcript at NLM Digital Collections: resource.nlm.ni...
Learn more about the National Library of Medicine's historical audiovisuals program at: www.nlm.nih.go...
#medicalhistory #mentalhealth

[@MicheleBohmke]

"The ability to accept Time as an ally is usually called patience." A pearl of Wisdom.

[@sexobscura]

... as well as "The ability to accept patience is an ally of the dull"

[@donnarupert4926]

I know this looked familiar. Both of my parents worked at this hospital for 30 years. I was in these buildings throughout my childhood. I’m 61 years old and this facility has been closed since the late 70’s. My Dad dressed identical to this man down to the black bow tie. The job title my Dad had was: PA III, Psychiatric Aide 3, my Mom was an R.N.🙋🏽‍♀️💕

[@jonathanstuart7354]

Dont want to burst your bubble but the facility closed in 1995

[@donnarupert4926]

J Stuart....I meant to say my Mom & Dad retired in the late 70’s. Have you ever been there??? My Mom worked in Cochran House, and Canaan House. My Dad if I remember correctly work in Kent House and Fairfield House. Kent House is one that has a ball field on the side next to the road. They filmed another movie 🎥 there, it was Sleepers, with Robert DeNiro and Kevin Bacon. 🙋🏽‍♀️

[@jonathanstuart7354]

Donna Rupert ive been in there a few times, Kent House and Cochran still stand but Fairfield House was demolished in 2007 and Canaan House was demolished in 2016. I wish they were still standing kind of sad they arent.

[@rg1whiteywins598]

Very cool. I like reading that someone remembered a place in a video.

[@nortonman5238]

@@jonathanstuart7354 Donna's dead

[@2bossboy]

It's amazing how medicine and the treatment for mental illness has changed for the good. I currently work at a State Hospital as a Rehab Tech and Spanish Interpreter and I really enjoy my job.

[@kellysims5732]

Much more change is needed. I hope your part of thar change and I wish you all the BEST

[@woolfy02]

I was waiting for the general conversation, to turn into a smoking commercial. 3:29

[@Jamesthehawk]

its too bad people aren't so understanding in the real world

[@danielengsvang3126]

Extremely good point. I am SUPER kind and understanding, but i feel awkward in this world because it is Really NOT often one sees that traits nowadays. Cheers from Sweden :)

[@rg1whiteywins598]

You must be young. The world changed a lot in the 1970s. I'm sorry you missed these times. I was a kid in the 1960s-1970s, and it was a whole lot kinder.

[@rg1whiteywins598]

@@danielengsvang3126 same, and I feel like I am in a time warp in my soul. I expect people to be like me because that's how it mostly was when I was a kid.

[@julienielsen3746]

God bless those who care for people in these institutions.

[@katherinea.williams3044]

Clearly

[@phillippasteur3904]

@Robert Gardea O yes, you are so smart you can't even spell smart! One day you will face the God you curse, and may God have mercy on your wicked, filthy soul.

[@KristineMarieTxSPI]

@@phillippasteur3904 Amen to that. Eternity in hell, and he is choosing his fate. Pathetic and sad.

[@rg1whiteywins598]

These don't exist much anymore. Most people with mental illness are medicated and housed in community based halfway houses, and given some type of employment. If the person is violent there are special State facilities for them.

[@mikezylstra7514]

@@rg1whiteywins598 A significant proportion of them today are the so-called "homeless." Not "locked up" but also not very good candidates for medications. Closing so many of these facilities in the name of "humanity" was a mistake.

[@Miss65boo]

Wards in public psychiatric hospitals in the 50s and 60s were always overcrowded and way understaffed and underfunded. Abuse was rampant because some staff were just there for the paycheck and were overtired and stressed and took it out on the patients. The ward shown on this film was for mild cases, when the doctor talked of transferring a patient who hadn't improved, he meant the back wards, where the "hopeless" cases were. Those poor people were warehoused in terrible conditions. When deinstitutionalization took place in the late 60s, patients who may have lived in the institutions for decades were discharged in to the community without enough supports to help them. It was a disaster that we are still dealing with today!

[@danielengsvang3126]

Good point. Same here in Sweden when "Lillhagen" was starting to let mentally ill patients go and take care of themselves. It did NOT work well. It's ALL about money, even till this day. WHEN will we humans start to act just like that, as HUMANS. We are all here together, but money seems to make people forget that. Just the same way that drugs make some people forget how to be human.

[@rg1whiteywins598]

Yup. But that hardly changed. I tried working at a state hospital back in early 1990s and the doctors and some other staff were so mean to the patients that I couldn't take seeing it and I quit.

[@pepper13111]

Advocates went court to close state hospitals. Look n further then today’s acting out in public, air planes, etc. we need them back.

[@mikezylstra7514]

@@rg1whiteywins598 Some things in life aren't pretty.

[@mariekatherine5238]

Deinstitutionalization often meant released to homelessness and an even earlier death than if they’d stayed in the hospital. My second cousin’s half-brother was released from Pilgrim State in NY. He was 27, and had been at Pilgrim State since mid-childhood. The family was ill-equipped to care for him, didn’t necessarily want him! He ended up a homeless heroin addict walking the streets in Long Beach. He was found dead, overdosed on the boardwalk when in his mid-30s.

[@Wolfboy183]

This brought tears to my eyes

[@bforthepeoplenottheelites5835]

Isn't it good how far we have come to understand mental illness as well as many other problems in the world. It is so easy and sad to condemn the past instead of using the knowledge of the past to make true progress. People laughed at Columbus and Einstein as they had MANY failures before they got it RIGHT! GOD BLESS THOSE THAT TRY!

[@northvilletunnels]

We completely ignore the mentally ill and use jails to warehouse them. They are treated very poorly these days. 2019

[@brianarbenz1329]

Columbus thought he was in Asia. That’s not getting it right.

[@tinerfenachinech6029]

Magnificient document

[@proud2bpagan]

I was so grateful for our RT.she was a godsend.

[@spiltsoymilk]

These facilities need to be reopened en masse.

[@amywallace239]

THIS IS VERY GOOD.

[@dmmchugh3714]

Today's mental health care system is useless for adults with mental illness. My 64 year old brother's schizophrenia got worse after our mother died. He stopped taking medication, we've had a year of problems. Yet the law doesn't allow us to get him treatment. The mental health agencies told us he has "the right to not treat his mental illness". In the meantime, he, lost his job last year, crashed two cars , isolates himself will only eat packaged foods (paranoid), does one handful of laundry each day (paranoid), and responds with cursing and anger if anyone talks to him. He doesn't care about anything. He will soon need to leave our mother's home - where he lived rent free - as we are selling the house with the estate: where is he supposed to go ? No one can help/advise us. The mental health care system is completely useless.

[@Kementiri]

He is entitled to some of the money from the estate sale unless you plan to defraud him. You could pay to have him housed somewhere.

[@Newsational]

@@Kementiri Shut up. Just shut up.

[@cathyramirez3370]

This is beautiful 😍

[@AJn404]

Fantastic lessons for everyone.

[@margiethessin8975]

In 1955 half of the hospital beds in the US were for the mentally ill and the average length of stay was 1 year. Perhaps there is something between that and today’s methods of dealing with the mentally ill: few if any involuntary commitments, few over a few days or a month, and almost total reliance on drugs.

[@mikezylstra7514]

Drugs work for a few but not all. That's who you see living on the streets.

[@holoholohaolenokaoi2299]

Tragically, he lost his son Harry in the Pacific war theater. God bless veterans and their Families that must endure this.

[@stugrant01]

My mom's childhood friend went to nursing college after high-school and on a field trip they took the nurses to visit a mental facility where they visited all the various departments within. In one of the wings the doctors brought out a young woman who had recently undergone a frontal lobotomy to present to the nursing students as an example of one of their "treatments". It turns out that the patient that the doctors brought in was my mom's friend's older sister, and her family was unaware up until then that she had undergone that operation. It was in the late 1940's and their whole family had pretended to the world that their oldest sister had gone away to fashion design college (to avoid scandal), since she was way out of control with outbursts, etc. The widowed Hungarian mother didn't speak very much English and she had innocently signed whatever the doctors placed in front of her whenever they told her it was good to sign it. The mother wouldn't have known what a lobotomy was any more than any other scientific word. It could have been valium or prozac for all she knew. She was very upset when her other daughter explained to her what a lobotomy was and it's implications.

[@gintechusa]

A wonderful look at what a lot of people did in the 50's and 60's, and, with the same attitude, work with the de-institutionalized homeless now...

[@Forensource]

Each of the patients is now on KZbin with a million subscribers. Earth to Jupiter.

[@randymorgan7133]

congratulation American now we just let them live on the streets.. Unfortunately most of the hospitals like this are gone..haven't we made great progress

[@rg1whiteywins598]

They are gone because there were so many abusive staff. Doctors made around 300 dollars an hour and all they did was write prescriptions. I tried to work at a state hospital and the abuse suffered by patients by staff was horrible. I had to quit because as a psychiatric technician I could do nothing to stop it.

[@sofiabravo1994]

@@rg1whiteywins598 But just because it was abusive it doesn’t mean that just letting the patients go was the smartest idea either, we need better regulation and quality care since we have come further from those days you would assume that they’d would have better regulation standards and health safety for these vulnerable people.

[@thomasbinninger1355]

True 👍

[@marc108]

Thanks to Obama

[@Imbringinglassyback]

Plot twist: Joe is actually a skitzo patient that believes he is working at the hospital.

[@didicoy72]

.......because he thinks he's Leonardo DiCaprio researching a character role for his next movie...

[@icecreamforcrowhurst]

Haha but as it says at the end, Joe was not a patient or an actor but an actual employee of the hospital where this was filmed.

[@krisrhood2127]

Very ableist of you

[@edschofield37]

This was BIll Bryson's first job in England. He met his wife at that job.

[@Octodactylpus]

This has the exact same beautiful, slightly wooden but earnest, acting of training and educational videos today. Down to the sequences that barely make sense in a linear story, but convey the message/lesson pretty effectively.

[@phillippasteur3904]

True, this is not real but it is some convincing acting.

[@elhuddleston17]

I needed part 2

[@lindathrall5133]

If we had those psychiatric aides today like back then I think the mentally ill folks would get better treatment as they need it mentally ill people need better care to begin with. The mental hospital system is broken it needs to be torn down then built back up the way should’ve been done. The psychiatrists should be taught about psychiatric abuse and how to stop it before it gets started. I say psychiatric doctors can learn how to be better doctors and not have to face being strapped down on the gurney waiting to be executed for a crime they committed. Psychiatric survivors must be reconised and supported with working toward a better understanding.

[@jeraldineeason829]

We do have many many good and caring people in the mental health field, it you truly had the courage of your convictions you would be one of them instead of trying to blame others for your own lack of action, and have you considered the problem of to many people? over population makes more of everyone the good the bad and the mentally ill, the few can only help the many if the many stop breeding like mice.

[@Tillythedevine]

were all of the people in this paid actors or were they actually filming patients?

[@brianarbenz1329]

The closing credits say all the people shown are staff members of the hospital portraying patients or themselves.

[@Tillythedevine]

oh! interesting.. thanks for pointing that out!@@brianarbenz1329

[@icecreamforcrowhurst]

Joe is a great listener

[@gentleauroraasmr8562]

Me Rusk calling the doctor his son name was heartbreaking💔. He's heartbroken!

[@carmenmonoxide7459]

"One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" 1.0 with humanity. I enjoy these older films. They seem to have compassion and unbiased production behind them.

[@kellysims5732]

Propaganda! Were you serious?

[@richardpodnar5039]

The ideal way to approach mental health in ours or any nation.

[@jordoncole3609]

Over 50 electric shock treatments!!

[@stugrant01]

"over 50 electric shock treatments, and he still hasn't improved, Doctor. Perhaps a lobotomy would be in order".

[@productjunkie9235]

If you weren’t crazy when you got there you sure would be before you left. 😆😆😆

[@noneofyahbizness1840]

Omg old mr whatever isn’t improving and has over 50 electric shock therapies done....hmmm...I wonder why..

[@stugrant01]

And the next thing they likely did to him was to give him a frontal lobotomy, like what the Kennedy's did to their eldest daughter (JFK's sister).

[@danaventura5998]

Was that Rod Serling narrating? If so there was no credit listed.

[@karenmacdonald6127]

No.

[@icecreamforcrowhurst]

Sounds more like an American version of King Charles to me

[@limitbreak2966]

3:26 go home and run as far as you can 4:42 bet this guy is just depressed and instead of helping him they locked him in this place

[@robertshows5100]

That cigarette looks good.

[@johnmccarthy2519]

it was so different then average joes walking into jobs like this

[@limitbreak2966]

7:05 ah, the “back ward” horrible place 7:37 no wonder he acts like this since he’s in that evil fuckin place “back wards”

[@noneofyahbizness1840]

This is soooooo fake

[@kellysims5732]

Well, your comment is the only sane one!

[@paulbeaney4901]

This is real progressive! The film not reality, obviously.

[@limitbreak2966]

2:01 no wonder they’re all n such bad shape, kept in horrible conditions back then

[@tomakafrankconlon3207]

How could anyone have been so stupid to think this was real and not just just a bunch of really bad actors. Gee wizz

[@Aaron_Esh]

1:52 OMG! Donald Trump was here

[@ladyggsmith3261]

lol

[@Crondo420ReFrEsHe]

Tesak MUST DIE His hair looks nothing like The Great Donald Trump

[@beentheredoneization]

Mental midget Aaron .. I see they let you out . Take your meds as you'll need them when you find out he actually DID win this election and we are blessed to have him for his second full term. Suck it up buttercups. #Trump2020 and beyond with Don Jr. .. yuppers. Visit Joe and Son at GITMO in about 3 months.

[@notavailable11231]

8:45

[@melancholy-kate9116]

ever wondered why men women became toxic, war and family break down, pressure. the men that fought and the women that were left frightened. war has hardened the soft hearts and created horrible impolite and impatient people, then of course the industry grew and people were worked to death, like pack horses. no wonder knowone is happy or polite. people are hardened out of fear. fear toughens people and people become defensive and also weak to impulse control. sorry to anyone that is offended by this but the laws on gay people and single people were correct as it lead them down and addictive / lost path of loneliness and selfishness then fear and often times violence, peer pressure im sure often came from someone who wanted to be different and to not comply and faught and faught.

[@lesterleland]

Doc levels wit mines,doos i belongs in a fruitcakes? Son sadly your one check ogg from full throttle loon, say whats wit that dewiLdered look CHECKOFF. a l l d a y son

[@thatsfunny2051]

WW2 vets

[@mwbright]

Looks like a snake pit to me.

[@Sky-fz8zg]

He needs a beating or he is seriously sick and needs " medical" treatment ...I think I'll take the beating which looks oh so much more unsympathetic thank you very much..LOL😱

[@kieranharford8755]

Sanitized Crap

[@kellysims5732]

Its a propaganda movie brought about from their sins of the past.

[@spiltsoymilk]

🤣🙄🤦‍♀️

[@Silkysilk]

The most heart breaking is seeing a person pass away even if their alive

[@brianarbenz1329]

The film starts off by saying: “This is no snake pit.” Then it proceeds to show a snake pit.