Before Freud and Jung.
Before Bill W. and AA.
Before the APA...
One woman walked into jails—and found people with addiction and mental illness chained, beaten...
Left to rot.
Her name? Dorothea Dix. And she changed everything.
Here’s the story: 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)
In the 1840s, people with addiction and mental health problems weren’t treated as patients.
They were treated as criminals.
Locked in cells. Starved. Mocked. Beaten until they couldn’t move.
This wasn’t rare. It was the standard.
By 1850, Dorothea Dix had traveled over 30,000 miles, inspecting jails and almshouses across the U.S. and Canada.
What she found was always the same: cruelty, neglect, and silence.
Her reports shook lawmakers to their core.
Most women of her time had no political power.
But Dix marched into legislatures and delivered evidence no one could ignore.
She embarrassed lawmakers into action.
And she won.
Because of her, 32 state psychiatric hospitals were built.
Not cages. Not dungeons.
Hospitals designed for light, food, and compassion.
Dignity as medicine.
Her core belief was radical then, and still radical now:
No one heals alone.
Recovery requires safety, care, and community.
Of course, many of these asylums later failed. Corruption and neglect returned.
Dix knew the work was unfinished.
But she cracked the lie that madness equals punishment.
She forced society to imagine something better.
By her death in 1887, her impact was undeniable.
Even the American Psychiatric Association named her an honorary member—unheard of for a woman outside medicine.
She had transformed mental health care in America.
Her legacy is simple, but profound:
Compassion changes history.
She proved that one person’s refusal to look away can ripple across generations.
Today trauma research proves it: the body carries wounds, and the body heals through support.
Isolation just compounds the pain.
Things have changed.
There is help.
Dr Sandra Mills
Healing still requires what Dix fought for—safety, community, compassion.
The nervous system can’t repair itself in isolation.
Group work can be extremely potent for healing trauma.
Dr Scott Giacomucci
Dorothea Dix.
Before psychiatry knew anything about healing.
A sickly schoolteacher exposed a nation’s cruelty—and demanded something better.
Her fight isn’t over. But she showed us the way forward.
Want more threads like this on the secret history of healing, psychology, and transformation?
Follow me
@DrBobBeare
for more.
And if you are on the body-focused healing path…
I'd love to hear your story.👇
Friends, it takes compassion and community to heal.
The Inner Work Community opens next week.
But here's a free course to get started.
Big discount for the Inner Work Community on days 4 and 5.
Free 5-day course: “Emotional Integrity 101 offers.drbobbeare.com/emotional-inte…
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.