My Current Field Placement And Area Of Interest

The evolution of mental health treatment in America has been a long and arduous road with many ups and downs. In many ways, attitudes towards the disease towards mental illness help shape the evolution of treatment. In addition, trends in treatment and cultural understanding of mental illness influence national policy. In Mad in American author Robert Whitaker discusses the mental health care system its history, evolution, and the current state of mental health care in America. Whitaker explores the ethnicity of practices and questions the safety and efficacy of psychiatric

Throughout the centuries mental illness has been treated by countless treatments. Modern treatments have created an argument over which treatment options are best. the most debates treatments today are medication and therapy. the argument of medication versus therapy as treatments for mental illness is fairly new. Yet, proponents of both sides have strong arguments stating the advantages of their treatment option. proponents of medication believe pharmacogenetics, tailored treatments, and medication's ability to treat severe disorders makes medication the better treatment option. proponents of therapy believe drug addiction, suicide prevention, and need adaption establishes therapy as the better treatment choice.

Florida Assertive Community Treatment (FACT) is a program that provides comprehensive community counseling to individuals diagnosed with a debilitating mental illness. It is federally funded by the State of Florida Department of Children and Families and serves a clientele of 100 adults in the Volusia and Flagler County areas. It is a derivative of the Program of Assertive Treatment (PACT) which was developed in Wisconsin in the 1970s when deinstitutionalization was a major practice in the mental health field. This outpatient program is rehabilitation and recovery oriented. FACT is unique in that it is the only service available that offers a housing, medication, and flexible funding subsidy to enrolled individuals which help to integrate them back into mainstream civilization to be productive members of society—reducing hospitalization, homelessness, and criminal incarceration among the mentally ill.

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.

In addition to the historical aspect, confusion about mental health is another reason leading to the perception of the mentally ill. The Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health, (1999), dispels any confusion by making detailed analogies and information. Mental health and mental illness are not opposites; they are like two points on a continuum. The value of mental health is

The introduction of new psychotic drugs can provide better or more thorough care for the mentally ill. Creating options rather than one solution may have been believed to do greater good for the mentally ill community. Furthermore, the economic incentives involved as long term care was and continues to be at such a high cost. Community resources cost little to nothing for the federal Government to support. As well as releasing the mentally ill to their families, in any case those with minor illnesses. Additionally, a shift from treating chronic patients to treating acute ones would generate basic sense into the minds of many. This modification states through actions that

Furthermore, tremendous advances have been made in the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses in the recent decades. Nowadays, someone with a mental illness is treated with respect, just like every other person, because, in fact, everyone is equal. Society’s goals today are to treat and support the mentally ill individuals enough so they can live in

The United States criminal justice system has been continuously increasing incarceration among individuals who suffer from a sever mental illness. As of 2007 individuals with severe mental illness were over twice as likely to be found in prisons than in society (National Commission of Correctional Health Care, 2002, as cited in Litschge &Vaughn, 2009). The offenses that lead to their commitment in a criminal facility, in the majority of cases, derive from symptoms of their mental illness instead of deviant behavior. Our criminal justice system is failing those who would benefit more from the care of a psychiatric rehabilitation facility or psychiatric hospital by placing them in correctional facilities or prisons.

Over the past thirty years, there has been a 500% increase in the U.S incarceration rate. (The Sentencing project, 2014) Advances in medicine, such as the discovery of psychoactive drugs, led to the deinstitutionalization of mentally ill patients from psychiatric hospitals. With a long record of horrific abuse,

Senate (S.) 689 is the Mental Health Awareness and Improvement Act of 2013, which resanctions and increases critical behavioral health programs through superior federal education and healthcare programs related to awareness, early identification, and prevention of mental illness (The Library of Congress, 2013). United States Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) pioneered S. 689 on April 9, 2013 (The Library of Congress, 2013). There are 23 co-sponsors of the Mental Health Awareness and Improvement Act of 2013, including 14

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 today’s society there is a greater awareness of mental illnesses. With this greater awareness one might assume that there would be a substantial increase in government involvement or funding in the area of mental illness treatment. Unfortunately this isn’t the case in the U.S. today. There are hundreds of thousands of people with mental illness that go untreated. These potential patients go untreated for many reasons. These reasons are discussed in the Time article “Mental Health Reform: What Would it Really Take.

According to Frankel, & Gelman (2012), various level of intervention, must be the solution to someone’s problem, including our own, therefore, the two case management models I selected was assertive and strength-based case management. Assertive case management or Assertive Community Treatment (Act), is an evidence-based practice, that provides an optimistic outcome for clients with severe mental health. Assertive case management/ACT help clients integrate into the community and provide clients with intensive assistance from a multidisciplinary team in the community. The team works together to provide a positive effect on the outcomes and quality of the client’s success. The team can consist of clinical psychology, social worker, occupational

Specific Purpose: To inform my audience how treatment of mental illness in America has changed.

It has been reported that the number of people with mental disorder is increasing in our communities at an alarming rate. Environmental and social changes are among the most mentioned causes of the accelerating rate of mental illness in society (Häfner, 1985). Despite the prevalence, about one fifth of the adult population will battle with mental illness every year ("Facts and figures about mental illness," 2014) and the acknowledgement of authorities mental illness is still given less attention then is needed to treat the problem successfully. Health bodies need to be putting more resources into this area as