Mental Illness Is A Taboo Topic

Insane Asylums in the 1920-1930’s were disturbing places to live. Men and women were held in different wards, each ward had up to fifty patients (D’Antonio). Patients lived incredibly close to one another. Not one patient knew what

In this article, the incarceration of the mentally ill is encouraged because it is safer than keeping them in mental institutions. It claims that mental institutions are extremely dangerous by their very nature and the nurses there are trained to treat the mentally ill, not to keep them from hurting themselves or other people. In prisons however, the

The disparity in treatment has been attempted to be remedied over the eras. Bills and Acts put into place in the 20th and 21st centuries have seeked to improve care and reduce stigma around those with mental illness. This began in 1942, when Harry Truman signed the National Mental Health Act, which requested the formation of a National Institute of Mental Health. Shortly after this, in 1949, the National Institute of Mental Health was established (“National Institute of Mental Health”). During the company’s 60 year lifespan they have focused on research about mental illness, educating the public, and improving the lives of the mentally ill by working to pass laws. One law that seeks to reduce the stigma of mental illness is the Mental Healths Service Act of California. "California 's Historic Effort To Reduce The Stigma Of Mental Illness: The Mental Health Services Act" from the American Journal Of Public Health illustrates how the Act will make improvements. Families and individuals who have experienced stigma had a big role in the process, specifically with developing a 10 year plan, the California Strategic Plan on Reducing Mental Health Stigma and Discrimination. One component of the Act discussed is the work plan developed by California Mental Health Services Authority, which has three components: stigma and discrimination reduction, student mental health, and suicide prevention. Organizations such as the NIMH have made efforts resulting in the evolution of mental

One of the biggest contributors for poor healthcare is the stigma against mental health. This stigma allows healthcare providers to view those with a mental illness as having low relevance, thus creating disinclination towards providing adequate resources and/or care. This negative stance, based on misinformation and prejudice creates those that have a mental illness to lose their self confidence. Because of this loss, people with mental illness decide not to contribute to their health or livelihood. In the past fifty years, many advances have been made in mental healthcare. However, with the attached stigma, many people choose to not seek out treatment.

Apart from medical technology and medications, the housing treatment has played a great role in improving the treatment of mental illness since the early 1990s. First and foremost, in the past the patients of mental illness were treated as prisoners by being isolated in hospitals or asylums but now they are treated as normal human beings with great care and respect. Secondly, in the past the patients stayed in the hospitals for long periods of time, whereas nowadays patients stay in their home community for most treatments. Only in severe cases, such as violent patients or those who cause harm to themselves may be required to stay in hospitals or more intense observation. Another form of housing treatment is community treatment in which the patients are treated in a friendly way while in

In the next stanza, the poet describes “A figure walking towards cloaked in blue/ Beeping/ Tubes/ Needles.” The poem addresses the routinely and monotonous aspect of being in the hospital for long periods of time. It is a critique of the biomedical model and how the hospital system is created where patients are tended to by multiple doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals. The patients and healthcare professionals are unable to form a relationship that consists of what Kleinman describes as “empathetic witnessing” (Kleinman). Therefore, detachment between patient and health workers is developed and established, to which the patient cannot recognize or know the people assisting them. In addition, Grealy discusses this in her earliest accounts and appointments with doctors. She states that there is a layer of “condescension” and is an “endemic in the medical

During the 1800s, treating individuals with psychological issues was a problematic and disturbing issue. Society didn’t understand mental illness very well, so the mentally ill individuals were sent to asylums primarily to get them off the streets. Patients in asylums were usually subjected to conditions that today we would consider horrific and inhumane due to the lack of knowledge on mental illnesses.

To illustrate the mental institute, the narrator describes remembering “the trapdoor… and find the girl tied to a bed (Ellison 74).” Many medical facilities have a seclusion room where they isolate patients who are violent or self-destructive, with medical restraints, according to Gale Springer from the American Nurse Today. The girl tied to the bed symbolizes the use of medical restraints and “her clothing torn to rags (Ellison 74),” suggest that the girl was doing harm upon herself or to others. One may think the narrator’s comment on “everything was fixed (Ellison 75),” was about the constant visits to the “bingo hall” looking the same. In the perspective of a mental institute, an

The use of confinement in the story can lead the reader to assume a number of different things about the setting of the book. The couple moves into a really nice mansion that no one has lived in for years. While the husband could have put his wife in any of the rooms of the house, he chose to confine her to a room that looked like a nursery. The woman being confined to a nursery can lead the reader to assume that they are treating her as if she is a kid. The nursery that she is put in is not an ordinary nursery; the nursery has bars over the windows. The bars over the windows are very significant to the setting. This particular aspect of the room can be related to a mental hospital. Mental hospital rooms would somewhat be described in the same way that the woman’s nursery is described in the book. Her bed is also nailed to the floor. All of these features of the room that she is placed in give the reader a hint that this woman is insane

Christopher Payne’s Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals, is the result of a seven-year survey of America 's vast and mostly abandoned mental institutions of the late 19th century (Payne & Sacks, 2009). Payne’s artistic eye captures images of numerous institutions throughout America and the abandonment that followed. Photographs which display an architectural perspective of 19th Century medicine and, as a by-product, the country’s early history of care for the mentally ill. The buildings he visited were obviously designed for a specific purpose, at a particular time, with a unique architecture to be displayed. Payne’s photographs in Asylum capture a period in the history of American healthcare. Palatial institutions proudly exemplifying the moral treatment of those impacted by mental health issues. Perhaps, Payne captured the images of buried streets, peeling paint from grand entryways, and of infrastructure now being reclaimed by nature, as a reflection of the state of mental health care today.

Wright, D. (1997). Getting out of the asylum: understanding the confinement of the insane in the nineteenth century. Social History of Medicine, 10, 13

Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest depicts a story of a sane man, Randle McMurphy, who decides to escape imprisonment by entering a psychiatric ward instead. The entire story is viewed in the eyes of a schizophrenic patient, Chief Bromden. This novel is set around the 1950’s in a mental asylum in Oregon. Besides the plot of the story, Kesey also manages to illustrate a realistic 1950’s mental hospital. The facilities, therapy and the release of patients in mental asylum in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey realistically depicts the conditions of mental hospitals during the 1950’s.

Her husband keeps wants her to put down her pen and paper, relax and stay in one room as she is stressed. The doctor and her husband agree that this is the best cure for her depression or mental anguish. All though not really on board with this plan, as she wants to live, she goes along with her doctor and husband’s blessing, holding her feelings inside “But John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself—before him, at least, and that makes me very tired” (Gilman, par. 26). In her husband holding her to this room, which has torn yellow wallpaper, she fades more and more into the faded torn walls “I'm getting really fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wall-paper. It dwells in my mind so” (Gilman, 94). She wants to get to any other room for the longest time, then subsides into blending into the wallpaper and what it possesses in its designs. Eventually, her husband went checking on her, found her creeping around on the floor, and was so astonished that she actually digressed that he

Eight sane people were admitted into twelve different hospitals, where their diagnostic experiences would be part of the data of the first part of the article, while the rest will be devoted to a description of their experiences in psychiatric institutions. The patients were all very different from each other, three were women and five were men. Among them were three psychologists, one psychology graduate, a pediatrician, a housewife, a psychiatrist, and a painter. The ones that were in the mental health field were given a different occupation in order to avoid special attentions that might be given by the staff, as a matter of courtesy or caution. No one knew about the presence of the pseudopatients and the nature of the program was not known to any of the hospital staff. The settings were different as well. The hospitals were in five different states on the West and East coasts. Some were considered old and shabby and some were

In this case study, one day of care for a 28 year old, male patient on a low secure psychiatric unit will be examined and discussed. The main focus will be on implementation and evaluation of the nursing process. These areas will be covered under; physiological, psycho-sociological and pharmacological aspects of the patient’s care. Although, the case study is discussed using third person expression, the care discussed is what was implemented and evaluated by myself, a second year student nurse, under supervision from a qualified member of staff.