Mental Health Reform 19th Century

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

Mental health began to take hold in the 1980s it was influenced by the development of patients councils in both the united states and holland.

The shutdown of state mental hospitals and lack of available financial and institutional resources force mentally ill people to the United States Judicial System for mental health. Every year thousands of people are arrested for various crimes and they are sent to jail. Sixteen percent of these people have some type of mental health problem (Public Broadcasting System , 2001). When we consider that the United States has the largest incarcerated population in the world at 2.2 million, this number is staggering (Anasseril E. Daniel, 2007). This is about 1% of the entire population of the United States. There are many reasons as to why the situation has taken such a bad turn and when the history of the treatment of mental illness is examined one can see how the situation developed into the inhumane disaster it is today.

Since the early 1990s, the progress of mental illness treatment has increased quickly. Many patients with mental illness have been able to leave hospitals and live normal lives because of advancement in treatment. The treatment of mental illness has changed in many ways. Some of these ways are medical technology, medication, and the housing treatment. These changes in mental illness healing have led to a great success.

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.

The articles address the prevalence of the issue of mental health and claims the importance of policy reform at all levels of society.

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 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.

Mental health services in St. Louis have undergone a multitude of changes as stigmas towards mental health issues have begun to change. Traditionally, mentally ill individuals were thought to be lacking religion or in trouble in the eyes of God, and this thought process was believed until after the Middle Ages. These beliefs may have changed, but the attitudes towards the mentally ill were continued into the 18th century and beyond, which caused an increase in the stigmatization of mental illness, and thus subjected these individuals to humiliating and unhealthy conditions found in the original confinement of mentally ill patients, asylums. The government created mental health asylums, which separated these individuals from their societies,

throughout Missouri, Strangler used his experience and power to persuade legislature to provide the funds.

The United States has never had an official federal-centered approach for mental health care facilities, entrusting its responsibility to the states throughout the history. The earliest initiatives in this field took place in the 18th century, when Virginia built its first asylum and Pennsylvania Hospital reserved its basement to house individuals with mental disorders (Sundararaman, 2009). During the 19th century, other services were built, but their overall lack of quality was alarming. Even then, researchers and professionals in the mental health field attempted to implement the principles of the so-called public health, focusing on prevention and early intervention, but the funds were in the hands of the local governments, which prevented significant advances in this direction.

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.

Policies have an important role in regulating and shaping the values in a society. The issues related to mental health are not only considered as personal but also affecting the relationships with significant others. The stigma and discrimination faced by people with mental health can be traced to the lack of legislation and protection of rights (Rodriguez del Barrio et al., 2014). The policy makers in mental health have a challenging task to protect the rights of individuals as well as the public (Swigger & Heinmiller, 2014). Therefore, it is essential to analyse the current mental health policies. In Canada, provinces adopt their own Mental Health Acts (MHA) to implement mental health services. As of January 15, 2016, there are 13 mental health acts in Canada (Gray, Hastings, Love, & O’Reilly, 2016). The key elements, despite the differences in laws, are “(1) involuntary admission criteria, (2) the right to refuse treatment, and (3) who has the authority to authorize treatment” (Browne, 2010). The current act in Ontario is Mental Health Act, 1990.

Mental health services ended up being far from reached by patients with primary psychiatric disorders. Mental health care means not only improving access but also improving clinical quality and ensuring cultural competence. It is the ability to treat and support programs to encounter individuals on personal terms and in methods that are customarily aware.

Unearthed skulls dating back to 6500 BCE have been discovered by archeologists to have large holes drilled into the sides of them. (1) The purpose of the drilling was to release the demon spirits that ruled inside these unfortunate beings. (2) The thought at the time was that strange, disruptive, or unexplainable behaviors demonstrated