L’Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Québec – Moral Treatment

According to some authors, at the outset moral treatment, which includes any therapy related to reason and the mind, such as recreation or work, was only a front to hide the real purpose of asylums – shutting away all undesirables to tidy up the landscape of society.1 However, the benefits of moral treatment were quickly realized and it was used more frequently. After Pinel’s theory was published, a report by Doctor William Hackett, a doctor at the Hôpital Général de Québec, was presented in 1810. The report said that activity, cheerfulness and regular exercise lead to health and are beneficial to body and mind, and that total lack of stimulation was suitable only for the violent mad.2

1. Peter Keating. La Science du Mal : L’institution de la psychiatrie au Québec, 1800-1914. Éditions Boréal, Montréal, 1993, p. 146.

2. H. A. Wallot. op. cit., p. 38.