What is the word that is used nowadays to mean "asylum"?

Question

I was trying to translate manicomio in English, and I remembered that a friend of mine told me the English word was asylum.

Looking at the OALD, I noticed it is said to be an old use of the word.

(old use) a hospital where people who were mentally ill could be cared for, often for a long time

Google Translate gives me the following words:

• Asylum
• Mental Hospital (This seems closer to ospedale psichiatrico.)
• Madhouse
• Bedlam

I assume that Google Translate orders the words in a specific order, but the fact the first one is asylum confuses me.

What is the current word I should used to mean the place where people with mental ill are cared for?

Notice that in Italian manicomio is also used for a situation where there is a lot of noise, activity, and confusion (i.e. pandemonium, which has also an equivalent in the Italian pandemonio); I guess that is the reason why Google translate suggests bedlam.

Answer 1

Mental hospital (which, as you say, corresponds to ospedale psichiatrico) is a reasonable choice for the lunatic asylum sense of manicomio. Psychiatric hospital or psychiatric ward also are reasonable. In some instances, rehab and retreat may apply. Loony bin might also apply but has an entirely different tone.

Answer 2

It's not so much that the word asylum is no longer used as that most places don't have them anymore. As was discussed in comments, the insane used to be placed in asylums which were more like prisons; they were thought dangerous and incurable, and essentially left to rot. Rather than just asylum by itself, I've more often heard this as insane asylum (though I suppose technically this is redundant, it's how I've heard it used, and helps differentiate it from political asylum).

The modern institutions that care for mental patients properly would indeed be called a mental hospital, though that is perhaps more informal than the more politically correct psychiatric hospital.

So while asylums themselves don't tend to exist anymore, I certainly wouldn't agree that the word is 'old'; in fact it was recently used to title a Doctor Who episode, which I find rather current. :)

Answer 3

Short answer: "mental hospitals" or "mental institutions"

The word "asylum" in general means a place of refuge or protection. So we can talk about people fleeing from political persecution "seeking asylum". People occasionally talk about some very peaceful and tranquil place being "an asylum from their hectic lives", etc. So originally the idea of an "insane asylum" was that it was a place where the insane could be protected and taken care of.

Or course once you make such a place a large institution, it becomes bureaucratic and impersonal, and so insane asylums acquired the reputation of being unpleasant places where mentally ill people were treated like animals or objects, warehoused, treated rudely, perhaps even abused. (I don't claim any personal knowledge, but I'd guess that, like most things in real life, there were likely places that were very good and caring and places that were abusive and evil, and the bad ones gave a bad reputation to all of them. But whatever.)

In any case, insane asylums acquired a bad reputation and were largely shut down in the western world. The ones that still exist are typically called "mental hospitals". This is probably technically inaccurate as they are not really hospitals, that is, their primary purpose is not treatment but to serve as a residential facility. It's more of a euphemism. Sometimes they are more accurately called "mental institutions".

Answer 4

The two most commonly used nowadays are "mental hospital" and "asylum". Both would be understood in American English, but, in my experience at least, "mental hospital" has become more common.