In the following chapters you will be given a glimpse of mental patients and the conditions in which they live. The picture will not be beautiful, but it will be interesting and accurate. You will be taken behind the impressive facades of imposing institutions, and there you will meet doctors, nurses, attendants and patients face to face. After reading these pages, the forgotten thousands in our mental hospitals will no longer be "out of sight." You will have seen them. Neither will they be "out of mind." You will have known them and known their problems.


A gate which has long been closed to you and to most ordinary citizens swings open beyond this page.