McLean Hospital (pronounced 'Mc-Lane') is a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, USA. It is noted for its clinical staff expertise and ground-breaking neuroscience research. It is also known for the large number of famous people who have been treated there, including mathematician John Nash,^[1] poets Robert Lowell^[2] and Sylvia Plath,^[3][4] singer-songwriters James Taylor^[5][2] and Ray Charles,^[6][2] author Susanna Kaysen,^[5][2] and one of the Olsen twins.^{[citation needed]} A psychiatric hospital (also called at various places and times, mental hospital, mental ward, sanitarium or asylum) is a hospital specializing in the treatment of persons with mental illness. ...   Settled: 1636 â€“ Incorporated: 1859 Zip Code(s): 02478 â€“ Area Code(s): 617 / 857 Official website: http://www. ... This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... The poor poet A poet is a person who writes poetry. ... Robert Lowell (March 1, 1917–September 12, 1977), born Robert Traill Spence Lowell, IV, was a highly regarded mid-twentieth-century American poet. ... Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, short story writer, and essayist. ... James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, born in Belmont, Massachusetts. ... Ray Charles was the stage name of Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004). ... Susanna Kaysen (born 11 November 1948) is an American author. ... Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Fuller Olsen (born June 13, 1986) are twin American actresses who have appeared in television and films since the age of 3 months. ...

McLean maintains the world's largest neuroscientific and psychiatric research program in a private hospital. It is the largest psychiatric facility of Harvard Medical School, an affiliate of Massachusetts General Hospital and a member of Partners HealthCare, which also owns Brigham and Women's Hospital. Drawing of the cells in the chicken cerebellum by S. Ramón y Cajal Neuroscience is a field that is devoted to the scientific study of the nervous system. ... Shield of Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is one of the graduate schools of Harvard University. ... Massachusetts General Hospital (often abbreviated to Mass General or just MGH) is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and biomedical research facility in Boston, Massachusetts. ... Partners HealthCare is a non-profit organization that owns several hospitals in Massachusetts, primarily in the Boston area. ... Brigham and Womens Hospital (BWH) is a hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. ...

History

Map of the McLean Insane Asylum from an 1884 atlas of Somerville, MA

McLean was founded in 1811 in a section of Charlestown, Massachusetts, that is now a part of neighboring Somerville, Massachusetts. Originally named Asylum for the Insane, it was the first institution organized by a cooperation of prominent Bostonians who were concerned about homeless mentally ill persons "abounding on the streets and by-ways in and about Boston." As such, it predates its sibling co-foundation, the Massachusetts General Hospital, by some seven years. It was built around a Charles Bulfinch mansion, which became the hospital's administrative building; most of the other hospital buildings were completed by 1818. The institution was later given the name The McLean Asylum for the Insane in honor of one of its earliest benefactors, John McLean, who granted it enough money to build several such hospitals at the 1818 cost. A portrait of McLean now hangs in the present Administration Building, along with other paintings that were once displayed in the original hospital. In 1892, the facility was renamed McLean Hospital in recognition of broader views on the treatment of mental illness. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (470x620, 79 KB) Summary This is a map of the McLean Insane Asylum in 1884. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (470x620, 79 KB) Summary This is a map of the McLean Insane Asylum in 1884. ... Birdseye view of Boston, Charlestown, and Bunker Hill between 1890 and 1910. ... Settled: 1630 â€“ Incorporated: 1842 Zip Code(s): 02143 â€“ Area Code(s): 617 / 857 Official website: http://www. ... Massachusetts General Hospital (often abbreviated to Mass General or just MGH) is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and biomedical research facility in Boston, Massachusetts. ... The Massachusetts State House, designed by Charles Bulfinch and completed in 1798. ...

In 1895 the campus moved from Charlestown to Waverley Oaks Hill in Belmont, Massachusetts. This was upon the advice of Frederick Law Olmsted, the renowned consulting landscape architect who also conceptualized the Emerald Necklace public spaces of Boston and New York's Central Park. The move was necessitated by changes in Charlestown, including new rail lines and other distracting development. Olmsted, who was eventually treated at McLean, created a therapeutic park landscape around the hospital buildings, which have been on this site ever since.   Settled: 1636 â€“ Incorporated: 1859 Zip Code(s): 02478 â€“ Area Code(s): 617 / 857 Official website: http://www. ... Frederick Law Olmsted, oil painting by John Singer Sargent, 1895, Biltmore Estate, Asheville, North Carolina Daniel France (September, 1988 was a United States landscape architect, famous for designing many well-known urban parks, including Central Park and Prospect Park in New York City, the countrys oldest coordinated system of... A landscape architect is a person, generally speaking, with an education, whether academic or practical, in landscape architecture and whose professional work conforms to the practice of the same name. ... The Emerald Necklace is a long string of parks in Boston, Massachusetts designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and maintained by the City of Boston and Town of Brookline. ... A Central Park landscape Central Park is a large public, urban park (843 acres or 3. ...

In the 1990s, facing falling revenue in a changing health care industry, the hospital drafted a plan to sell a percentage of its grounds for development by the Town of Belmont. The sale of the land became the root of a divisive and somewhat baroque political debate in the town during the late 1990s. Ultimately a plan to preserve some of Olmsted's original open space and to allow the town to develop mixed residential and commercial real estate prevailed over a plan to create only high-end residential development. The deal was finalized in 2005 and land development was well underway at the end of the year.

An interesting book on the history of McLean is Alex Beam's Gracefully Insane: Life and Death Inside America's Premier Mental Hospital (ISBN 1-891620-75-4). Some memoirs of time spent within McLean's walls include Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar and Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted (ISBN 0-679-74604-8), which was made into a movie starring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie. The 1994 Under Observation: Life Inside A Mental Hospital (ISBN 0-14-025147-2, ISBN 0-395-63413-X) by Lisa Berger and Alexander Vuckovic uses some fictional techniques (composite characters, etc.) to describe some of the typical events at Mclean. Alex Beam (born 1954) is a writer and journalist, currently a columnist for the Boston Globe. ... Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, short story writer, and essayist. ... The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plaths only novel, which was originally published under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas in 1963. ... Susanna Kaysen (born 11 November 1948) is an American author. ... Girl, Interrupted book cover Girl, Interrupted is an Academy Award-winning film adapted by the memoir by Susanna Kaysen. ... Girl, Interrupted is a film that was adapted from the original memoir Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. ... Winona Ryder (born Winona Laura Horowitz on October 29, 1971) is an Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning American actress. ... Angelina Jolie (born June 4, 1975) is an American film actress, a former fashion model and a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency. ... A composite character is a character in a fictional work that is composed of two or more individuals. ...

Facts about the hospital

• McLean Hospital is currently ranked 1st among all psychiatric hospitals in the country according to U.S. News and World Report.[1]
• McLean ranks among the top 15 hospitals worldwide receiving National Institutes of Health grant support.
• It is home to the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, the largest "brain bank" in the world.
• The hospital developed and implemented national health screenings for alcohol, depression and memory disorders.

U.S. News & World Report is a weekly newsmagazine. ... The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for medical research. ...

Famous patients

• Musician James Taylor
• Musician Ray Charles
• Musician Steven Tyler
• Musician Rick James
• Landscape Architect Frederick Law Olmstead
• Poet Anne Sexton
• Poet Robert Lowell
• Poet Sylvia Plath
• Mathematician John Nash
• Writer Susanna Kaysen
• Scholar John Strugnell

James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, born in Belmont, Massachusetts. ... Ray Charles was the stage name of Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004). ... Stephen Victor Tallarico (born March 26, 1948 in Yonkers, New York), better known as Steven Tyler (and often nicknamed The Demon of Screamin) is an American musician and songwriter. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Frederick Law Olmsted (April 27, 1822–August 28, 1903) was a United States landscape architect, famous for designing many well known urban parks, including Central Park in New York, New York, the oldest coordinated system of public parks and parkways in Buffalo, New York, Mount_Royal_Park in Montreal, the Metropolitan... Anne Sexton, 1974 Anne Sexton (November 9, 1928, Newton, Massachusetts – October 4, 1974, Weston, Massachusetts), born Anne Gray Harvey, was an American poet and writer. ... Robert Lowell (March 1, 1917–September 12, 1977), born Robert Traill Spence Lowell, IV, was a highly regarded mid-twentieth-century American poet. ... Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, short story writer, and essayist. ... This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Susanna Kaysen (born 11 November 1948) is an American author. ... John Strugnell, born in England in 1930, was the youngest member of the team of scholars led by Roland de Vaux, formed in 1954 to edit the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jerusalem. ...

Resources

• McLean Hospital website
• Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center

References

1. ^ Interview with John Nash: My Experience with Mental Illness. PBS.org. Retrieved on 2007 February 7.
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Sale, Jonathan. "Ray Charles played piano all the time", The Independent, May 4, 2006. Retrieved on 2007 February 7.
3. ^ Maroda, Karen (November 29, 2004). Sylvia and Ruth. Salon.com. Retrieved on 2007 February 7.
4. ^ About the Author - Chronology of Plath's Life. The Bell Jar. CliffsNotes. Retrieved on 2007 February 7.
5. ^ ^{a b} Beam, Alex. "SHRINK WRAPPED DRUGS AND ROCK 'N' ROLL WERE REGULAR FEATURES OF LIFE AT MCLEAN PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL IN BELMONT. FOR JAMES TAYLOR AND MANY OTHER AFFLUENT YOUNG PEOPLE, IT WAS A COMBINATION OF PROGRESSIVE MUSIC SCHOOL AND COUNTRY CLUB, WITH BARRED WINDOWS", The Boston Globe, November 26, 2001. Retrieved on 2007 February 7.
6. ^ Ray Charles Plays the "Harvard Club". Harvard Magazine (January–February 2002). Retrieved on 2007 February 7.