Essay On You DonT Have To Have A Home

In an effort to transform the public mental health system, in 1963, President Kennedy proposed the Community Mental Health Act. It was the first among several federal initiatives to create a community mental health care system. Once the act was ratified, there was an intense deterioration in institutionalization, otherwise known as “deinstitutionalization”, and by 1980 there was a 75% declined of the inpatient population at many public psychiatric hospitals. In 2000, there was less than 10% of the public institutionalized just fifty years earlier. In 2009, there was even a more dramatic shift among children and adolescence whereby there was a 98% decline in

Many years ago, mental illness was viewed as a demonic possession or a religious punishment. In the 18th century, the attitudes towards mental illness were negative and persistent. This negativity leads to the stigmatization and confinement of those who were mentally ill. The mentally ill were sent to mental hospitals that were unhealthy and dangerous. A push in the mid 1950s for deinstitutionalization began because of activists lobbying for change. Dorothea Dix was one of these activists that helped push for change. The change called for more community oriented care rather than asylum based care. The Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963 closed state psychiatric hospitals throughout the United States. "Only individuals who posed an imminent danger to themselves or someone else could be committed to state psychiatric hospitals" (A Brief History of Mental Illness and the U.S. Mental Health Care System). Deinstitutionalization meant to improve quality of life and treatment for those who are mentally ill. This would hopefully result in the mentally ill receiving treatment so they could live more independently. The hope was that community mental health programs would provide this treatment but sadly there was not sufficient or ongoing funding to meet the growing demand for these programs. Budgets for mental hospitals were reduced but there was no increase for the community based programs. Many mentally ill individuals have been moved to nursing homes or other residential

Today, it seems almost incomprehensible that so many people with serious mental illnesses reside in prisons instead of receiving treatment. Over a century and a half ago, reform advocates like Dorothea Dix campaigned for prison reform, urging lawmakers to house the mentally ill in hospitals rather than in prisons. The efforts undertaken by Dix and other like-minded reformers were successful: from around 1870 to 1970, most of the United States’ mentally ill population was housed in hospitals rather than in prisons. Considering reformers made great strides in improving this situation over a century and a half ago. Granted, mental hospitals in the late 19th and early 20th century were often badly run and critically flawed, but rather than pushing for reform of these hospitals, many politicians lobbied for them to close their doors, switching instead to a community-based system for treating the mentally ill. Although deinstitutionalization was originally understood as a humane way to offer more suitable services to the mentally ill in community-based settings, some politicians seized upon it as a way to save money by shutting down institutions without providing any meaningful treatment alternatives. This callousness has created a one-way road to prison for massive numbers of impaired individuals and the inhumane warehousing of thousands of mentally ill people. Nevertheless, there are things that can be done to lower the rate mentally ill persons are being incarcerated. Such

The treatment of mental illness has gone through many reforms over the years. Stemming from some of the earliest documented cases of treatment such as trephination in 5000 B.C. to the opening of “mental” asylums starting in the late 1300s to the development of the modern healthcare system. Through the 1800s until now, major developments in mental health treatment include the evolution of the “mental” asylum, widespread psychopharmacology, and psychotherapy treatments. Primarily focusing on the treatment methods of the past two hundred or so years, the United States of America has made leaps and bounds to provide humane treatment to aid those in need.

Deinstitutionalization is defined as the movement of severely mentally ill people out of large state institutions. In the 1950s, public hospitals housed well over 500,000 people. The reduction in the number of institutionalized people began in 1956. By 1980, the residential population in mental hospitals dropped by nearly three-quarters, an average of 154,000 individuals. This decrease is due to the process of closing public hospitals and transferring patients to community-based mental health services. Consequently, community services were implemented (Talbott 2004).

The elimination and cut backs of public mental hospitals resulted in the building of Community Mental Health Centers. The serious mentally ill who were supposed to benefit by these developments were replaced by people who were well off and thought they were sick. Making the problem worse the serious mentally ill were unable to re-enter hospitals because of tighter admissions standards ( Contemporary World Issues 1990). Without hospitalization or the ability to support themselves they were forced to the streets.

In 1955, over 559,000 individuals resided in inpatient psychiatric hospitals. By 1995, however, the number had drastically diminished to 69,000, (National Health Policy Forum, 2000). This drastic reduction was largely due to the discovery of antipsychotic medications in the 1950s, and the deinstitutionalization movement of the 1960s, wherein several thousands of mentally ill individuals were released from psychiatric institutions to return to their communities for treatment. Mental health centers (MHCs) were conceptualized during deinstitutionalization to provide treatment to these newly-released mentally ill persons in their communities. Although efforts were well-intended, the MHCs failed to serve the

Psychiatric institutions had been increasing in number ever since Dix started her campaign. Institutions, at the time, were thought to be the most effective treatment for the mentally disabled. Patients were monitored by professional staff and had increased access to medical care if needed, compared to patients living at home. Institutions also took the burden off of families who were uneducated on how to take care of their mentally ill relatives ("Module 2: A Brief"). Although these facilities seemed like the right answer, many people were coming to the conclusion that there was a better route. Institutions were often understaffed and underfunded, and often had reports of poor conditions ("Module 2: A Brief"). Even though institutions were not as effective as planned, they were still a step in the process of improving conditions as a whole. People would not have found that institutions were insufficient if Dix had not started the process. Due to the poor condition of facilities, the Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963 was passed ("Module 2: A Brief"). The act started closing hospitals and allowed only the most severe cases to be hospitalized. This reform process was inspired by Dix. She spoke out to improve conditions, and a century later improvements are still trying to be made. People are more aware of the issue and more knowledgeable about the patients themselves due to Dix’s

Due in part to the community's lack of preparedness and resources, the needs of many of the deinstitutionalized has not been meet. Therefore many of the mentally ill have ended up exchanging hospitalization for institutionalization in prison or jail." This situation left many mentally ill on the streets with no one to look after them except the nation's police. Another reason for the increasing number of mentally ill individuals in the community is the expense of mental health services. Many individuals are unemployed and therefore without income. Many are not covered by health insurance and the individuals who do have insurance are often smothered under restrictions on coverage for mental illness. Others face time limits on in-patient treatment that will have rewarding effects. Others have difficulty accessing government-funded health coverage. Others depending upon their condition are not even aware that this program exits. Regardless of the reasoning police, as well as judge's and probation officers are on a daily basis faced with the increasing number of mentally ill individuals that are rotated amongst the system.

Do you know that between 1955 and 1998, we have about 558,000 patients dropped to 60,000 patients in our country and state mental hospital? During this time, there have a national shift between state hospitals and community-based facilities in mental health treatment, it’s called deinstitutionalization. In 1965, the Congress has created Medicaid. It is a payment for people who are in community mental health centers. In addition, President Jimmy Carter had signed the Mental Health System Act in 1980. It provided grants in a straight line to community mental health centers, but the time of fund is very short. Because when President Ronald Reagan is on the place, he cuts one third of spend to federal mental health. According to The New

In 1965, there was a histrionic change in the method that mental health care was delivered in the United States. The focus went from State Mental Hospitals to outpatient settings for the treatment of mental health issues. With the passing of Medicaid, States were encouraged to move patients out of the hospital setting (Pan, 2013). This process failed miserably due to under funding and understaffing for the amout of patients that were released from the State Mental Hospitals. This resulted in patients, as well as their families, who were in dire need of mental health services. This population turned to either incarceration (jails and/or prisons) or emergency departments as a primary source of care for their loved ones.

& Friedrich, R., 2017). While this process was intended to integrate this population with the greater population, there was not enough community based programs being created for the amount of people being released from psychiatric hospitals. Today, long stay psychiatric hospitals are only available to those who have shown that their mental illness is a danger to others if allowed to live within the community without supervision. There are a few policies that can be credited for the closing of long term mental health facilities and the increasing number of individuals that are now homeless as a

Reported surgeries didn’t have significant effects on curing the behavioral deficits and had some severe side-effects such as inertia, unresponsiveness, and decreased attention span. Therefore, many times the side effects ended up worse than the problem that psychosurgery proclaimed to cure. It also became known that there were many professionals who were unqualified to perform the procedure that were operating in unsterile environments. Thus, psychosurgeries became less popular and illegal in some place, while people criticized for only silencing symptoms rather than curing them. However, it continued as a treatment for psychosurgery until the introduction of chlorpromazine. Chlorpromazine was the first pharmacological therapy for insanity. The introduction of psychiatric drugs and the rejection of current psychosurgerical operation led to a downfall in

Even though we only lived in Philadelphia a short while, this is the house where I have

Have you ever thought about being a landlord to make some extra money? Well I highly suggest don’t, and here is why. My parents started off owning a home with their two children (my brother and my sister). Five years after my sister was born here I came along. The house was too small for my parents and three children. They had 6 acres of land with the house and a big barn, so they decided to build a new house that was bigger. And here the renting began.