Institute for Health Seminar: Dr. Philip Yanos on Exiles in NYC & Mental Health in US

Clinical psychologist and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Dr. Philip Yanos, joins IFH for a seminar to discuss his book, Exiles in New York City: Warehousing the Marginalized on Ward’s Island.

🗓️ Tuesday, February 24 12:00pm

🏢 💻 Hybrid Seminar:

IFH, 1^st Floor Conference Room. Please join us in person if you can and feel free to bring your lunch. Coffee and cookies will be provided.

Zoom Option:

Ward’s Island in the East River sits just a short distance from Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx, yet it has been cordoned off from the rest of New York City. For nearly two centuries, it has been treated as a dumping ground for society’s most marginalized—the unhoused, recent immigrants, and people diagnosed with mental illnesses. Even today, its two psychiatric hospitals, homeless shelters, and residential substance-use treatment program house more than one thousand people, but these institutions are fenced off from the athletic fields and green space of the adjoining Randall’s Island Park. 

Philip T. Yanos—a clinical psychologist who grew up on Ward’s Island—will explore the history of the island alongside the history of urban mental health systems in the United States. Drawing on archival documents and interviews with current residents and staff while weaving in recollections of his own childhood, he will trace how the island became a place of exile and brings to life the failings of the approach to mental illness that it represents and propose how it can be transformed into a place of inclusion.