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Connecticut Historical Society Mental Health Exhibit Showcases IOL’s 200th Anniversary

November 03, 2021

A first-of-its kind exhibit of the history of mental health treatment in Connecticut and across the nation will include displays about the Institute of Living, which is celebrating its 200th anniversary in 2022 and 2023.

The exhibit, “Common Struggle, Individual Experience: An Exhibition About Mental Health,” is opening on Friday, Nov. 12, and will be on display through Oct. 15, 2022 in the galleries of the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford.

According to the Historical Society, the display will focus on understanding how people have struggled with mental health throughout history, and how that understanding helps and supports people today.

The exhibit will explore how society has sought to care for and continues to seek care for the mind and mental health. Letters, photographs and other artifacts will help showcase the experience from the past, and oral history interviews, recorded in 2020 and 2021, will share the perspectives of people today. During the course of exhibit, Behavioral Health Network experts will play a role in panel discussions and community education events.

“This is a natural partnership,” said John Santopietro, MD, Senior Vice President, Hartford HealthCare and Physician–In–Chief of the Behavioral Health Network, which includes the Institute of Living. “The fact that The Institute of Living is celebrating its 200th anniversary at the same time that the Connecticut Historical Society is offering this exhibition is such an extraordinary confluence of events. The Institute of Living is a big part of the history of mental health, and a big part of this exhibition. How could we not do this? Together, with the Connecticut Historical Society, we can help educate our community on mental health — past, present and future. This is an amazing opportunity to tell a very important story.”

The Institute of Living is one of the oldest and foremost mental health institutions in the nation, from its days of wealthy patients playing on tennis courts and lounging poolside to the managed care era and now modern-day research and treatments.

Originally opened as the Hartford Retreat for the Insane, its founder, Eli Todd, MD, focused on a moral approach, with the theory that mental health could be treated more humanely. Therapy included exercise, conversation and relaxation.

In 1860, Fredrick Law Olmsted, Hartford native and renowned landscape architect, was hired to redesign the hospital’s grounds. Annetta Caplinger, vice president of operations at the Institute of Living, said tours of the IOL include pointing out trees that are still on campus from his design.

“We are a modern psychiatric hospital steeped in history,” Caplinger said. She said plans for the 200th anniversary include partnering with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, producing a podcast series, as well as holding forums and events.

For more information on the exhibit, click here.