Mental Health Care Issues

This article begins by discussing the history of mental illness, going as far back as the 1700s. It goes over professionals in the field, the incidence rate, and treatments, all of this from the different time periods throughout the United States. The author also makes a point to acknowledge the different perceptions there were in the past of mental

As you will see in this paper, mental illness has been a serious situation for many years. Over the years, there have been different thoughts relating to the causes of mental illness including what the actual situation is and observance of how to treat the mentally ill. This paper will inform you of three different historical periods: Colonial America, Depression & the New Deal and War & Prosperity in which an important aspect of mental health happened in each. I will include some religious and economic information for each period due to the relationship that religion and economy had to the way mental illness was viewed and treated in those periods.

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

Before 1955, the mentally ill took shelter in mental facility institutions. After 1955, the United States’ deinstitutionalized these facilities and made policy changes to the mental illness treatment system. However, those policy changes are flawed. Some say rather than abandoning mentally ill patients and depriving them of shelter, the United States government should change the way the mentally ill are treated in their current living situations. Instead of changing the attitudes of those who provide services to the mentally ill, it would be more beneficial to change the services themselves.

In the book, Crazy, by Pete Earley, provides a detailed overview of the mental health system in the United States, as it presents a first hand narrative of Earley’s family journey through the system. The author’s major premise and arguments, in the book, is to highlight the history of mental health, navigation through the judicial system with mental illness, the bureaucracy and policies of hospitals, society views on human rights and client safety, and the impact on the individual, family, and community. The content suggests that human service workers and public health workers should extend their professional lens to advocate for change in the mental health system in the United States.

brain, or sending patients to institutions, doctor prescribed pills to try and treat mental conditions. In addition mental health patients were no longer being institutionalized due to the poor conditions in mental institutions (History of Mental Illness”)

The 1800’s were a terrible time for people suffering from mental illnesses. They were treated like monsters and criminals. Most families could not financially support to watch over their afflicted family members. By the 1840s a teacher and writer by the name of Dorothea Dix began to fight for the reform of mental health. She believed that the mentally ill deserved better treatment than what they were receiving. She documented the atrocities she

Evaluation and treatment of the mentally ill population has developed from confinement of the mad during colonial times, into the biomedical balancing of neurological impairment seen in these modern times. There were eras of mental health reform, medicalization, and deinstitutionalization sandwiched in between (Nies & McEwen, 2011). Regardless of the stage of understanding and development, communities have not been completely successful in dealing with and treating persons who are mentally unwell. Fortunately, treatment has become more compassionate; social and professional attitudes have morphed into more humanistic and

The theory of ‘deinstitutionalization’ began arising with the theory of providing more freedom to the mentally ill and less spending on full time care facilities. The widespread use of drugs to control the mentally ill in the 1900s led to a mass release of patients and an emptying of asylums. Outpatient Psychiatric Clinics were established. Case Law in the United States began to be generated to provide the mentally ill with greater rights. Shelton v. Tucker 1960 provided that the mentally ill should receive care in the “least restrictive alternative”, which is a practice still utilized. O’Connor v. Donaldson 1975 ruled that non-dangerous mental patients have the right to be treated or discharged if they have been institutionalized against their will. This new approached permitted the mass exodus

Throughout history our nation has struggled with the treatment of mental illness. In our early history, mental illness was not seen as something of interest, and as a result, those who had a mental illness were not treated the way they should have been. The advancement of science and medicine has allowed society to start to unfold once seemingly impossible to understand mental disorders, and bringing with it a surge of awareness and motivation to help those in need; but it would not come easy. Through the 1800’s leading up to the turn of the century, state hospitals started to sprout up across the country. One that we will spend our time discussing was the St. Peter’s state hospital in St. Peter Minnesota.We will learn about the hardships experiences

And while this new method has succeeded in recent decades, there is now a new group of homeless, mentally ill substance abusers who refuse treatment around the country. The author is a very qualified historian of the care of the mentally ill. Grob was a professor of the History of Medicine at Rutgers University and its Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research. He received his B.S. from City College of New York, received a master’s degree from Columbia University and, his Ph.D. in history from Northwestern University. He was elected to what is now known as the National Academy of Medicine in 1991.

One century prior, government mental institutions prevented harmful interactions between the mentally ill and the public through involuntary commitment and medication; deinstitutionalization—the closing down facilities and releasing of patients—moved many patients in need of care onto the streets, but we desperately need these facilities. Dr. Fuller E. Torrey, founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center, which works to eliminate barriers for mental illness treatment, concluded that “extensive research on the history of deinstitutionalization by various individuals and organizations have shown increase in jail population inversely related to the population of psychiatric institutions; as patients decreased, prisoners increase” ("The Release of

During the mid-1800’s the mentally ill were either homeless or locked in a cell under deplorable conditions. Introduction of asylums was a way to get the mentally ill better care and better- living conditions. Over a period of years, the admissions grew, but staff to take care of their needs did not. Asylums became overcrowded and treatments that were thought to cure, were basically medieval and unethical

19TH CENTURY (1800-1890) There is a long history of interaction between mental health policies and definitions of mental illness.5 One of the most important examples dates to the late nineteenth century, when states passed a series of State Care Acts, which transferred responsibility for the care of people with severe mental disorders to the state. These acts still account for the public sector's responsibility to provide care and treatment, particularly for those who are impaired and

Mental Health has been recognized, as the well-being at which individuals are able to cope with everyday stresses, and work productively while contributing back to their community. Mental Health America began in the early 1900’s by Clifford W. Beers, a former psychiatric patient who experienced mental/physical abuse during his stay in public and private institutions. It wasn’t until short after a reform group emerged, to stand against the abuse and ill-treatment at these institutions. In this paper, I will be discussing the history/background of Mental Health Services, and how quality, access, cost or other factors have changed (or how they haven’t). I also will be discussing the populations that benefit from this type of service and the significant issues, and or problems within the area that impact specific populations. Lastly, I will interpret national policy, legislation, attitudes, political climate, and how they impact or relate to the problems discussed, then I will address two current issues discussed along with clarifying each discussion.