Clifford Whittingham Beers

Who was Clifford Whittingham Beers?

Clifford Whittingham Beers was the founder of the American mental hygiene movement.

Beers was born in New Haven, Connecticut to Ida and Robert Beers on March 30, 1876. He was one of five children, all of whom would suffer from psychological distress and would die in mental institutions, including Beers himself. He graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale in 1897, where he was business manager of The Yale Record and a member of Berzelius.

In 1900 he was first confined to a private mental institution for depression and paranoia. He would later be confined to another private hospital as well as a state institution. During these periods he experienced and witnessed serious maltreatment at the hands of the staff. His book A Mind That Found Itself, an autobiographical account of his hospitalization and the abuses he suffered, was widely and favorably reviewed, became a bestseller, and is still in print.

Beers gained the support of the medical profession and others in the work to reform the treatment of the mentally ill.