outpatient clinics and psychiatric units in general hospitals.
By 1961, the involvement of the federal government had grown to the extent that President John F. Kennedy made the first presidential address on behalf of the mentally ill. Part of this address called for a "bold new approach," to treatment, an approach in which the mentally ill were to be removed from large facilities and returned to their local communities.
The Presidential call gave voice to the then new concept of deinstitutionalization. This notion held that treating the mentally ill in their own communities would assist them to more quickly attain (and maintain) a "normal" lifestyle. As this notion became more popular in psychiatric and political circles, more and more mentally ill people were turned out
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