Lost landscapes of healing: the decline of therapeutic mental health landscapes

Therapeutic landscapes feature prominently in contemporary discourse as they relate to mental health and well-being. Yet this engagement belies the long history of such settings in the therapeutic regimen for those with mental illness. Notable here are the asylum landscapes of the nineteenth century which included airing courts, ornamental gardens, orchards, vegetable plots and recreational grounds aimed at providing meaningful activity for inhabitants, natural beauty to assist them in their recovery, as well as provide food and income for the institution. With the emergence of deinstitutionalisation, modern pharmacotherapy and the reductionist biomedical approach to health, among other factors, these landscapes lost their therapeutic place during the twentieth century. Lacking however, is a critical examination of this transformation. Through the conceptual framework of therapeutic landscapes, this article explores this nexus with a focus on changes which transpired during this period eventuating in the demise of institutional landscapes for mental illness.