Today, around 90% of people with a mental illness receive outpatient treatment. Only a small percentage require hospitalisation, and some stays are unique or brief.
Until the 1970s, this was different. Patients often spent long periods of their lives in the institution. Upon initial admission, the person became a "case": Extensive documentation began and a medical history was created. The detailed reports and case notes were used to make a diagnosis, monitor the course of the illness and treatment, and for exchanges with other institutions and authorities.
The surviving case files provide insights into the changes that have taken place in psychiatry. However, it is not only the methods of diagnosis and treatment that have changed. The shift in language is particularly striking. What sounds pejorative to today's ears may have been a neutral technical term in the past.