Clifford Beers, a former Yale student, was hospitalized for mental illness several times during his life for depression. He found conditions in mental institutions deplorable and exposed them in his book, A Mind That Found Itself (1908),which became a popular best-seller. Beers used the book as a platform to advocate for better mental health facilities and reform in the treatment of people with mental illness by making friends with and soliciting funds from influential people of his day, such as the Fords and Rockefellers.His work had an especially powerful influence on the fields of psychiatry and clinical psychology.“Many people in these fields referred to what they were doing as counseling, ” Which was seen “as a means of helping people adjust to themselves and society”.Beer’s work was the impetus for the mental health movement in the United States,as well as advocary groups that exist today including the National Mental Health Association and the National Alliance for the Mentally.His work was also a forerunner of mental health counseling (Samuel, 2009,p.9).