Mental Illness Should Not Be Treated

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.

Forget all the stereotypes of mental illness. It has no face. It has no particular victim. Mental illness can affect an individual from any background and the black community is no exception. African Americans sometimes experience even more severe forms of mental health conditions because of unmet needs and barriers to treatment. According to the Office of Minority Health, African Americans are 20 percent more likely to experience serious mental health problems than the general population. That’s why UGA third year Majenneh Sengbe is taking action as the co-founder of her upcoming organization Black Minds Daily.

Problem Statement: The World Health Association defines ‘good’ health as: “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” However, in the United States, access to care and funding for mental health care are grossly neglected and underfunded in comparison to other aspects of health care.

In the United States the Mental Health Care field is one of the most underserved areas of healthcare. The mental healthcare field faces many challenges to the proper treatment of patients from both a societal and professional standpoint. From a societal perspective a negative stereotype is associated with patients seeking psychiatric care. Patients seeking care are often labeled as defective or damaged. Add in the complication that most patients with mental illness appear to be normal, accepting that someone is ill without outward symptoms can also be difficult for a society to understand. From a professional perspective the challenges within the mental health care industry include personal prejudice, staffing issues, and problems with coordinating care. The combination of these factors has a direct negative impact on the willingness of individuals suffering from mental illness in seeking the care needed to treat the symptoms of mental illness.

“Come find me when you decide to not have a broken arm.” “You don’t look like you have a terminal disease. You’re just saying that to get attention.” “Can’t you just try to not get sick?” Nobody would actually say these horrible things to someone with a physical disease, and yet we find it okay to say it to someone with a mental disease. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) every year, about 42.5 million American adults which is about 18.2% of the total adult population in the United States suffer from mental illness. 56% of these people never did not receive treatment for their mental illness, and suffered

There are many different mental illnesses and ailments and just as many medications to treat them. The problem is that sometimes the medications are not correct for your disorders due to similar symptoms. This leads to problems with the patients who need help, but the patients are not getting the right medications and treatment they need.

People’s rights are important, just as peoples’ safety, but what if the two contradict each other, especially when discussing people who suffer from mental illness. When we talk about severely mentally ill people, should we be more concerned about the particular person, or what the mental illness is capable of doing to the person. Debates and serious conversation have been sparked by the simple question that most people are yearning for an answer to: should the mentally ill be forced to take medication. Both sides of the argument makes points that make you think about ethics, and decent human rights.

Mental health illnesses have been around since interrelated relationships have been present in society. The treatment of this illness has evolved immensely throughout history. Early on, those who were mentally ill were demonized and thought to be an all mighty evil, which had the ability to be passed on to others. Due to this ideology, many people shunned, and banished those who were thought to be mentally handicapped. In order to protect society from these “beasts” many people imprisoned mentally ill individuals and were stripped of the ability to live their lives. Fortunately, as society progressed and different ways of treating the mentally ill were established through scientific advancements. Along with these advances, treatment for

Statistical data reveal that 25% of adult Americans have a mental illness, and more than half of the U.S. population will develop a mental illness at some point during their lifetime (CDC; APA). "Major Depressive disorder is a leading cause of disability for ages 15-44. Major depressive disorder affects approximately 14.8 million American adults, or 6.7 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year” while anxiety disorder affects …40 million…adults ages 18 and older…” (NIMH; APA). Comparatively, cardiovascular, diabetes, epilepsy, obesity, cancer, and asthma, and other chronic diseases are surfacing with increased frequency among the mentally ill (CDC; APA). The aforementioned finding elicits question about medical

My experience in mental health clinical was very different from any other clinical I had before. In a mental health clinical setting, I am not only treating client’s mental illnesses, I am also treating their medical problems such as COPD, diabetes, chronic renal failure, etc. Therefore, it is important to prepare for the unexpected events. In this mental health clinical, I learned that the importance of checking on my clients and making sure that they are doing fine by performing a quick head-to toes assessment at the beginning of my shift. I had also learned that client’s mental health illness had a huge impact on their current medical illness.

By providing an example of patients who have several mental disorders such as depression, bipolar, and neurotic problems, “were twice as likely to have a stroke or experience heart disease that the general population” (Gregorie). She also added, “cardiologist showed how stress can trigger neurological and psychological changes that create the conditions for heart attacks” (Gregorie). With providing this information, Gregorie painted the basic overview of how depression and heart disease can cause one

Over 4 million people in the U.S. alone are untreated for severe metal diseses such as schizophrenia. untreated mental illness can lead to homelessness, incarsirations and suicide. First of all 28 percent of the homeless population suffer from a mental illness and are obviously not reciving proper care, with the appropriate care and treatment alone that number could be lowered by 74%. Secondly the amount of people with untreated mental disorders comprise of 16% of the total jail/prison inmate population, (nearly 300,000) People with untreated psychiatric illnesses spend twice as much time in jail than non-ill individuals and are more likely to commit suicide. Another benifit of treating mental illness is it has the potential

The video showed a number of children and teenagers from all social backgrounds suffering from mental disorders, schizophrenia, autism and emotional problems, leading them to isolation from society while treating their issues in mental health facilities. These young individuals face obstacles and mistreatments in inadequate places under the supervision of careless professionals. The documentary tracks some of those public mental institutions and another private center dealing with troubled kids and reveals what's wrong with their procedures, and the irreversible harm they cause in those patients. In the beginning, the video showed a boy named Brian with 16 other mentally ill children on a bus going to the zoo. Brian suffers from mania and schizophrenia

Is there anything more frustrating than finding out that scientific theories that were considered great ideas back then if applied to today’s world should be tossed away? These theories are not a secret and I can go on and on; but similar to these scientific theories, there is a theory about the mental illness are brain illnesses. This is not true because a mental illness is referred to as “a wide range of mental health conditions that affects your mood, thinking and behavior” (mayo clinic). In a recent edge article, Mental Illness is Nothing but Brain Illness”, which is written by Ian Gold and Joel Gold argue that mental illness and brain illness are two different things. For example, if we have a brain illness, it is only associated with the brain. In order to treat that brain illness, we just have to fix the damage done to the brain because the cause relies in the brain. On other hand, if we have a mental illness, it effects the brain; but it makes “references to the world outside the brain” (Gold). In order to understand and treat a mental illness, we have to “sometimes move outside the skull” because there are several causes (Gold). I agree with the writer that so much research is done on the brain, but none of it yet can help the mental illness’s patients. So, if we stop associating mental illness as brain illness and research on the main causes, we can prevent some people from getting a mental illness at all. This

I would agree that before a patient is even referred to a psychatristic that they should get a full medical work-up. According to Medical News Today, 2014 1 and 20Amercians are misdiagnosed each year. When it comes to mental illness it is extremely important to make sure that you get the diagnosis right simply because the medications alone can take a major toll on someone’s health if they are not truly suffering from some form of psychosis. For example you want a patient to recive radiation treatment or take chemotherapy medications if they are not suffering from cancer. In what ways would you suppose the efforts that need to take place to reduce the amount of medical misdiagnosis in health care facilities?