The Hamlet Project

Actually, it’s probably better to send your mad friends and relatives to another country than the usual alternative in history. At least a change of scenery gives a person something positive and a degree of freedom. The “cures” for such things could be brutal and violent and most likely did more harm than good.
Later, institutions for the mad were such places of horror, it must have been like giving your loved one a death sentence to send them there.
Lord knows that foreign travel does wonders for my mental health.