Yeah… its wrongly tied to Reagan when in reality it was a large progressive movement and a push to medications as the new wonder drug that would fix it.

“The belief then was widespread that the same scientific researchers who had conjured up antibiotics and vaccines during the outburst of medical discovery in the 50's and 60's had also developed penicillins to cure psychoses and thus revolutionize the treatment of the mentally ill.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/30/science/how-release-of-mental-patients-began.html