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Getting On in Gotham: The Midtown Manhattan Study and Putting the “Social” in Psychiatry

Culture, medicine and psychiatry, 2021-09, Vol.45 (3), p.385-404 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

The Author(s) 2021 ;2021. The Author(s). ;The Author(s) 2021. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License. ;ISSN: 0165-005X ;EISSN: 1573-076X ;DOI: 10.1007/s11013-021-09751-4 ;PMID: 34491491

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  • Title:
    Getting On in Gotham: The Midtown Manhattan Study and Putting the “Social” in Psychiatry
  • Author: Smith, Matthew
  • Subjects: Adult ; Anthropology ; Brain ; Clinical Psychology ; Humans ; Interdisciplinary aspects ; Medicine ; Mental Disorders ; Mental Health ; Mental health care ; Middle Aged ; New York ; Oral history ; Original Paper ; Physicians ; Poverty ; Psychiatry ; Psychopathology ; Public Health ; Social isolation ; Social psychiatry ; Social Sciences ; Sociocultural factors ; Sociology ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; World War II ; Young Adult
  • Is Part Of: Culture, medicine and psychiatry, 2021-09, Vol.45 (3), p.385-404
  • Description: In the spring of 1962, a series of alarming headlines greeted American newspaper readers. From “New York Living for Nuts Only” and “One in Five Here Mentally Fit” to “Scratch a New Yorker, and What Do You Find?” and “City Gets Mental Test, Results are Real Crazy,” the stories highlighted the shocking and, to some, incredible statistics that fewer than one in five (18.5%) Manhattanites had good mental health. Approximately a quarter of them had such bad mental health that they were effectively incapacitated, often unable to work or function socially. The headlines were gleaned from Mental Health in the Metropolis (1962), the first major output of the Midtown Manhattan Study, a large-scale, interdisciplinary project that surveyed the mental health of 1660 white Upper East Side residents between the ages of 20 and 59. One of the most significant social psychiatry projects to emerge following the Second World War, the Midtown Manhattan Study endeavored to “test the general hypothesis that biosocial and sociocultural factors leave imprints on mental health which are discernible when viewed from the panoramic perspective provided by a large population.” Despite initial media and academic interest, however, the Midtown Manhattan Study’s findings were soon forgotten, as American psychiatry turned its focus to individual—rather than population—psychopathology, and turned to the brain—rather than the environment—for explanations. Relying on archival sources, contemporary medical and social scientific literature, and oral history interviews, this article explains why the Midtown Manhattan Study failed to become more influential, concluding that its emphasis on the role of social isolation and poverty in mental illness should be taken more seriously today.
  • Publisher: New York: Springer US
  • Language: English
  • Identifier: ISSN: 0165-005X
    EISSN: 1573-076X
    DOI: 10.1007/s11013-021-09751-4
    PMID: 34491491
  • Source: ProQuest One Psychology
    MEDLINE
    Springer Nature OA/Free Journals
    ProQuest Central
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