Insanity Essay

He differentiates between madness as a clinical condition and a mystical madness. He further supports his argument with Elie Wiesel distinctions of the two. Clinical madman isolates himself from the world while mystical madman brings the Messiah in him (112). Patterson further discusses the notion of madness before the creation of human and

Rosenhans study ‘On Being Sane in Insane Places’ tests the hypothesis that ‘We cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals’. (Rosenhan, 1973) This study is an influential criticism in testing the validity of psychiatric diagnoses, contextual factors in reaching these diagnoses, and what happens after a patient has been diagnostically labelled as ’psychologically abnormal’. The aim of Rosenhans study was to prove a positive hypothesis. During the study 8 participants of various

Without that initial statement, why would we think him mad? Then he says; "Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing." How does he know that madmen know nothing? I wrote in my own journal once; "Insanity is not madness. Sanity is madness, if one can distinguish the difference between sanity and insanity, does that not then make you sane?" So then, if the narrator questions our thoughts on his sanity, he must then know the difference or that there is a difference between sanity and insanity, does that not then create some question as to his own sanity? I think from the very beginning he questioned his own sanity to himself thereby creating the question of insanity to the reader! Isn't that insane? (ha ha) But was he insane? Insane is defined in Webster's New Concise Dictionary as: "Not Sane; mentally deranged or unsound. Set apart for demented persons. Not Whole." OK, well we still cannot prove that he was or was not insane. Was he a psychopath? Some would say yes, most definitely. But what is a psychopath? Psychopaths have a character type that enables them to pursue pleasure with indifference to the suffering they cause others. Psychopaths are completely lacking such virtues as benevolence and compassion. In this story, the narrator says; "I loved the old man.

The purpose of the insanity defense is to protect the defendants that are found to be mentally ill. Although insanity may be difficult to prove, it gives the opportunity for others to prove that they are not mentally competent to understand the severe degree of their actions. An accused that is not mentally stable, is not able to stand trial like every other criminal. They have to find a different approach during their trial. They cannot think rationally, and they are not in contact with reality so therefore, they have the chance to use the plea. The defense is idea to those who actually have a mental disorder or have a history of dealing with a mental disorder.

Over 18.2% of the adult American population has been clinically diagnosed as insane. Insanity Is a large concept to understand. It can make anyone diagnosed do things that their full body is not aware of. It can also get people out of certain situations like a court case. In court if one are diagnosed as insane, one would get sent to a mental asylum instead of a prison. This way the person diagnosed can be taken care of. In the recent case of the slenderman stabbing, that has lasted four years, Anissa Weier was sentenced to an asylum instead of being sentenced to prison, for she was diagnosed insane. If Mary Moloney was in court for the murder of her husband, she would be in a mental institution. In lamb to the slaughter, by Roald Dahl, Mary Moloney over reacts and kills her husband using a frozen leg of lamb. Mary had killed Patrick, her husband, because she had received bad news, but the audience does not know what the news is. In Lamb to the Slaughter, by Roald Dahl, Mary Maloney portrays insanity because she overreacted and killed her husband, Talked to herself and laughed at her husband’s death and changed moods in the blink of an eye.

There are many different events in a person’s life that could lead them to insanity. In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” you are dealing with a woman who is a victim of male over-protectiveness and isolation that eventually leads to her insanity. In William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” you are dealing with a man who has to deal with his father’s death and rejection from the love of his life that eventually leads him to a form of insanity. Each character handles their situations differently, but it could have gone the other way had they chose to make different decisions.

The narrator is constantly trying to prove his sanity, yet we can conclude that he actually, if not consciously, subconsciously understands he is going mad. He is the one that first puts the idea of him being mad in the reader?s mind, and he is the one that continually asks how it could be possible that he is mad, which shows that he himself is not sure. He?s trying to prove his sanity in such a desperate way, that I believe it is obvious he must have some idea of his insanity, otherwise he would just state his sanity, rather than trying to prove it.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, sanity is “the condition of having a healthy mind [or] the condition of being based on reason or good judgement” (Merriam-Webster). Using this definition, the question to address would then be what constitutes having a healthy mind? Some people believe that in order to be seen as having this you have to be “normal”. For some this term is the “equivalent of [being] oblivious and you [are] ‘abnormal’ when you [are] sentient, human, and real” (Maisel, 2011). This concept of what is normal and what is not is dependent upon how everyone in the society around them acts. Therefore, someone who is not deemed as being “normal” cannot be seen as having a healthy mind and having a good sense of judgement because they are too perceptive to the world around them. In Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener” and Harlan Ellison’s “ ‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” the principal characters are ostracized by the society’s they live in for this very reason. Being that both of the characters are mindful enough to rebel against what society expects of them, they can be perceived as exhibiting a form of “divinest sense”.

Insanity is described as “a derangement of the mind” according to the online dictionary, (Insanity). Throughout the novel, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, it is to be understood that the main character, Randie McMurphy, is portrayed as a mentally deranged being that is purposely breaking all of the wardens’ rules, Nurse Ratchet. From the point of view of the narrator, the story is told about how the feud of the two begins and grows more intense every day. McMurphy is purposely breaking Nurse Ratchet’s rules for multiple reasons, perhaps to make a point that even a mental man can make mistakes and any normal being on this planet. There is imagery, symbolism, and a of metaphors throughout the entire novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest that

While reading the story Opening Skinners Box wrote by Lauren Slater there was a chapter that made me look at the world like I do and how sometimes the world relates to a story. The chapter was On Being Sane in Insane Places” while reading this chapter I seen and I was thinking that some of the things being said in the book was true. Sometimes people make wrong choices and they chose paths that lead them to bad consequence. Then we have those people that are born with this, bad consequences. Sometimes we have to face the world and how the world is. Sometimes it is not their fault that they are the way that they are. Some of them are just born that way because of their chromosomes that are way too much or some that don’t fully develop.

Insanity, comes from the Latin word sanus, meaning healthy. Insane is meant to be the opposite, sick or of unsound mind. # In the court of law, the jury must prove that at the time of the crime, the defendant was not in a sane mind. The attorneys job is to prove without a doubt, that the defendant was not in control of their actions, at the time the crime was committed. Once this is done and the verdict is given, if found guilty by reason of insanity, the person is usually sent to a mental hospital, where treatment can be give. Once at the hospital the patient is then give therapy and even drugs if needed. At the time when the person and the doctors feel he/she are capable of going back into society, and when

Former U.S president Ronald Reagan was shot by a man named John Hinckley in the year 1981. The president along with many of his entourage survived the shooting despite the heavy infliction of internal and external injuries. The Hinckley case is a classic example of the 'not guilty by reason of insanity' case (NGRI). The criminal justice system under which all men and women are tried holds a concept called mens rea, a Latin phrase that means "state of mind". According to this concept, Hinckley committed his crime oblivious of the wrongfulness of his action. A mentally challenged person, including one with mental retardation, who cannot distinguish between right and wrong is protected and exempted by the court

"Insanity is defined as a mental disorder of such severity as to render its victim incapable of managing his affairs or conforming to social standards." (Insanity, pg. 1) It is used in court to state that the defendant was not aware of what he/she was doing at the time of the crime, due to mental illnesses. But insanity is a legal, not a medical, definition. There is a difference between mental illness and going insane. Many problems are raised by the existence of the insanity defense. For example, determining the patient's true mental illness (whether they are faking or not), placement of the mentally ill after trial, the credibility of the psychological experts, the percentage of cases that are actually successful,

The audience should also notice within the first paragraph where the legal definition of insanity could also be applied. It is here where his words begin to contradict themselves. It is here where he starts to demonstrate a mad man, by accusing the audience of coming to the conclusion that he is mad. He then goes on to imply that if he were mad, he “would be out of control, …profoundly illogical, and not even recognize the implications of his

This movie is mainly about time travel and the problems it faces, but the film also brings up a very interested question. How do we judge who's insane and who is not? Towards the end of the movie the film suggests that James Cole is in fact sane but throughout the movie we're forced to wonder whether he's crazy. Like the strange voice he keeps hearing over and over. At different times during to movie Cole hears this voice. We never do find out who it is. This must have been put into the movie to emphasize that Cole isn't necessarily sane, and to make the viewers wonder about this. Cole even gets put into a mental institution. With this example we can began to wonder that if a sane person could mistakenly be put into a mental institution simply because their frame of mind is so much different than what's expected, then maybe people who are considered insane aren't that insane after all. Perhaps their minds are just so much more different or advanced they don't function the same as the average person.