Historical notes on partial hospitalization.

The author addresses the historical antecedents of three important aspects of partial hospitalization: (1) therapeutic use of the milieu, (2) decentralization of hospital-based care, and (3) a pluralistic view of the human organism. In the process, a tour d'horizon of Western psychiatry from the period of Phillipe Pinel to that of Adolf Meyer is provided. Such an excursion into history permits a greater appreciation of the partial hospital setting and the relevance of history in the evolution of psychiatric thinking.