Tag Archives: Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute

For A Price

Dr. Boris Sidis

Dr. Boris Sidis

“A good many people are beginning to realize that nervous diseases are alarmingly on the increase …. Nerves are the most ‘prominent’ complaint of the 19th century,” wrote one reporter in an 1887 issue of the Boston Globe.

As always, medical entrepreneurs found ways to accommodate the trend to everyone’s satisfaction. When a case of “nerves” became unbearable to a person or unmanageable for the family, alienists found a way to cater to wealthy patients’ need for privacy and luxury. The Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute was an example: it was a private asylum containing “beautiful grounds, private parks, rare trees, greenhouses, sun parlors, palatial rooms, luxuriously furnished private baths, private farm products,” according to a brochure designed to appeal to Professor Boris Sidis’ expected clientele.

Images From the Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute

Images From the Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute

Sidis also had a reassuring message for them. “It is well known and correspondingly deplored among physicians and psychologists,” Dr. Sidis explained, “that there are fully 50pc. of mentally disturbed cases that cannot be cared for in an insane asylum. These cases are of persons who are not actually insane, but who are on the verge of that condition. Also, they are not physically ill, or if they are ill it is not so serious that they should be sent to a hospital.”

McLean Asylum for the Insane Began as a Mansion Purchased from Joseph Barrell

McLean Asylum for the Insane in Charlestown, Massachusetts Began as a Mansion Purchased from Joseph Barrell

For families wishing to avoid the stigma of insanity, a private “institute” or sanitarium was far preferable to a crowded state-run asylum manned by poorly paid and trained staff. These private asylums probably gave patients–many of whom undoubtedly had genuine mental illness–the relief they needed and served the purpose for which they were created. However, they came with a price most of the country couldn’t afford. Sidis charged today’s equivalent of $1,000 a week–out of reach for all but the wealthy. No matter how desperate they might have been to put their loved one in the best place possible, most families had to settle for state asylums.

 

Excellence for the Entitled

Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute, courtesy Sidis Archives

Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute, courtesy Sidis Archives

Early asylum care was dramatically better than what families could provide at home (see last post), but institutional care began to fail once asylums became popular enough to be overcrowded. Legislators were aghast at the public’s demand for more admissions, which consequently meant more available rooms, buildings, staff–and public funding. State governments typically met this challenge by insisting that asylums make their money go further, which often meant skimping on amenities and staff.

Dining Room at Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute

Dining Room at Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute

This didn’t need to happen at private establishments where patients could pay for the level of care they wanted, or for private-pay patients at public institutions. Boris Sidis, who opened his private institution, the Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute in New Hampshire in 1910, knew to emphasize the luxurious accommodations available. “Palatial rooms, luxuriously furnished private baths, green houses, sun parlors, and private farm products” were just some of the amenities sure to delight his patients and set their families’ minds at rest.

Boris Sidis, courtesy Atlantic Monthly, 1922

Boris Sidis, courtesy Atlantic Monthly, 1922

Sidis charged between what would be (in today’s dollars) $1,000 – $2,000 a week for his services. One can only imagine how nice life could have been there, and what a pleasant retreat his institute was for  patients who went there voluntarily, as many did.