The Cassel Hospital was founded and endowed by Ernest Cassel

Ernest Cassel

Sir Ernest Joseph Cassel, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, PC was a German-born British merchant banker and capitalist.-Biography:...

 in England in 1919. It was initially for the treatment of "shell shock

Combat stress reaction

Combat stress reaction , in the past commonly known as shell shock or battle fatigue, is a range of behaviours resulting from the stress of battle which decrease the combatant's fighting efficiency. The most common symptoms are fatigue, slower reaction times, indecision, disconnection from one's...

" victims. Originally in Penshurst

Penshurst

Penshurst is a village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks district of Kent, England. The parish is located on the northern slopes of the Weald, west of Tonbridge. Within the parish boundaries are the two villages of Penshurst and Fordcombe, with a combined population of some 1,479 persons. The...

, Kent, it moved to Stoke-on-Trent

Stoke-on-Trent

Stoke-on-Trent , also called The Potteries is a city in Staffordshire, England, which forms a linear conurbation almost 12 miles long, with an area of . Together with the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme Stoke forms The Potteries Urban Area...

 during World War II. In 1948 it relocated to its present site at No. 1 Ham Common

Ham, London

Ham is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames on the River Thames.- Location :Its name derives from the Old English word Hamme meaning place in the bend in the river. Together with Petersham, Ham lies to the east of the bend in the river south of Richmond and north of Kingston...

, Richmond.

Building

The present hospital was originally a late 18th century house known as Morgan House. In 1863 it became home to the newly-married Duc de Chartres. In 1879 it became West Heath

The New School at West Heath

The New School at West Heath is an independent school in Sevenoaks, in southeast England. It caters for children for whom mainstream schooling has become insufficient, for varying reasons...

 school for young ladies. The school moved to its present site in Sevenoaks

Sevenoaks

Sevenoaks is a commuter town situated on the London fringe of west Kent, England, some 20 miles south-east of Charing Cross, on one of the principal commuter rail lines from the capital...

, Kent in the 1930s, and the building became the Lawrence Hall Hotel until its purchase by the Cassel Foundation in 1947.

Facilities

The hospital developed behavioural rather than medicinal techniques of group

Group psychotherapy

Group psychotherapy or group therapy is a form of psychotherapy in which one or more therapists treat a small group of clients together as a group...

 and individual psychotherapy

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...

. It was here that Tom Main

Thomas Main

Thomas Main was a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who coined the term therapeutic community.Born Thomas Forrest Main, he studied medicine at Durham University before becoming superintendent at Gateshead Mental Hospital. During the Second World War he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as an...

 pioneered his concept of a therapeutic community

Therapeutic community

Therapeutic community is a term applied to a participative, group-based approach to long-term mental illness, personality disorders and drug addiction...

. It is now a psychotherapeutic community which provides day, residential and outreach services for young people and families. It is run by the West London Mental Health NHS Trust.