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Exhibit Debuts at SAMHSA

SAMHSA recently hosted the debut of a traveling exhibition, The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic.

In 1995, during the closure of the Willard Psychiatric Center in New York’s Finger Lakes region, several hundred suitcases filled with the personal belongings of former patients were discovered in the hospital attic. The suitcases and their contents bear witness to the rich, complex lives these people led before they were
hospitalized at Willard.

“We bring you this exhibit as a part of SAMHSA’s designating 2006 as the ‘Year of the Consumer,’ ” said A. Kathryn Power, M.Ed., Director of SAMHSA’s Center for Mental Health Services. “Our intent is to raise awareness of the critical importance of consumers and families being at the center of their own personal mental health care. Unfortunately, as this new exhibit shows, that has not always been the case.”

The exhibit was created by the Community Consortium, an organization of people with psychiatric histories and their allies, to honor the memories of these people and others like them who were removed from their communities and institutionalized in the early to mid-20th century.

The exhibit is circulated by The Exhibition Alliance of Hamilton, New York.

For more information on the exhibition, visit www.suitcaseexhibit.org.