Clifford Whittingham Beers

A Mind That Found Itself: an Autobiography (Dodo Press) Clifford Whittingham Beers

Clifford Whittingham Beers (1876 - 1943) was the founder of the American mental hygiene movement. He was born in New Haven, Connecticut and graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale in 1897. After the publication of A Mind that Found Itself: An Autobiography (1908), an account of his confinement in a mental institution for depression and paranoia, he had the support of the medical profession and others in the work to prevent mental disorders. He started the Clifford Beers Clinic in New Haven in 1913. It was the first outpatient mental health clinic in the United States. Beers was one of the biggest supporters of the Eugenics movement in America, which was also flourishing in Germany during the early part of the Twentieth Century. He was a leader in the field until his retirement in 1939.