define psychiatric hospital
Traverse City State Hospital, Traverse City, Michigan. Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals and mental asylums, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of serious psychiatric illnesses, such as clinical depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading.
Psychiatric hospitals may also be referred to as psychiatric wards (or psych wards) when they are a subunit of a regular hospital. Modern psychiatric hospitals evolved from, and eventually replaced the older lunatic asylums.