Beers, Clifford (Whittingham) (1876–1943)

US founder of ‘mental hygiene’ movement. Hospitalized after a breakdown in 1903, Beers wrote The Mind That Found Itself in an effort to reform mental health care. He called for a true therapeutic approach to mental illness instead of just custodial care. The National Commission for Mental Hygiene became an international movement under his lifelong leadership .Much of what he advocated has now become accepted practice.