One Flew Over The Cuckoo 's Nest By Ken Kesey

During the 1700’s the jails were not only used to confine criminals, but they confined people with mental illness as well. People with mental illness were subjected to inhumane treatment, even when the individual was admitted

Institutional care was condemned, as in many cases patients’ mental conditions deteriorated, and institutions were not able to treat the individual in a holistic manner. In many state institutions, patients numerously outnumbered the poorly trained staff. Many patients were boarded in these facilities for extensive periods of time without receiving any services. By 1963, the average stay for an individual with a diagnosis of schizophrenia was eleven years. As the media and newspapers publicized the inhumane conditions that existed in many psychiatric hospitals, awareness grew and there was much public pressure to create improved treatment options (Young Minds Advocacy, 2016). .

In 1973, psychologist David Rosenhan published “On Being Sane in Insane Places” which documents the results of studies he and his confederates conducted at 12 different psychiatric hospitals across the United States. The studies were an examination into the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis methods. Rosenhan’s research focused on testing the hypothesis of whether or not psychiatrists and medical staff can distinguish the sane from the insane and if the characteristics that lead to diagnoses relate more to the patient or to the environment and context in which they’re being assessed. (Rosenhan, 1973) The study was divided into two main parts. Participant observations and comparative information studies were noted as well as they gave valuable insight into the treatment of psychiatric patients, conditions in psychiatric hospitals, and the effect that diagnostic labels had on how patients were perceived by staff. Ultimately, the study discovered that psychiatrists could not reliably distinguish the sane from the insane and insight was gained into how diagnostic labels and environmental context play a strong role in the perception of behavior.

Nurse Ratched (also known as Big Nurse) was used to being forceful to get what she wanted. She stopped at no end to have complete oversight over the men in the ward. When the men were in the nurse’s presence they were either saying what they knew she wanted to hear or cleaning something that she ordered them to clean. They knew not to speak out against her and to not say something that would make you stand out too much. Ratched’s tactics to get them to be fit for society were normally some kind of procedure on the man

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.

In this book written by Ken Kesey, the main character is a man named R.P. McMurphy who tricks people into thinking that he is a psychopath. To McMurphy, the asylum is a get out of jail free card, which quickly turns out to be something else entirely. However, one vital aspect of this book is the way in which it addresses and provides insight upon several contemporary issues relating to the American healthcare system, by illustrating the ways in which our modern healthcare system has improved and grown in the last five decades. This includes the following areas of healthcare: the need for a healthcare reform, the lack of healthy doctor-patient relationships, and the murky definition of mental illness.

Regarding Miss Ratched, she seems to show signs of passive-aggressive behavior throughout the book. This behavior adds to her manipulative ways and contributed to the decrease of the patients’ progress (mental/physical state). Passive-aggressive behavior is used to maintain control and power because it’s a way for her to not display any signs of weakness. Miss Ratched, also known as the Big Nurse to the patients, fights hard to remain as the top authority figure in the Ward due to her thirst for power. To maintain the control over the men, she emasculates them, stripping them of their masculinity, in various ways to prevent the chance of an uproar against her. For instance, after a group meeting regarding Harding’s problem with his wife’s breasts, the patients attack Harding. In response, McMurphy provides an analogy of a pecking party to the current

One of the most controversial issues regarding the mentally ill and the prison system is the medical treatment received. According to the film, “16% of the prison population in the state of Ohio, which reflects a national average, are persons who have been diagnosed with mental illness.” Prisons began as an institution designed to rehabilitate, however, a vast majority of prisons throughout the country do not provide adequate medical care for their mentally ill inmates. However, the prisons that do possess adequate health care are most likely the first instance in which the inmates with mental illness have received any sort of treatment in their entire life. People with chronic mental illness need constant supervision which they cannot get outside of prison. Although inmates does not receive the most extensive treatment, the treatment they do receive is well beyond the treatment they would have received had they stayed out of the criminal justice system.

For centuries societies have been superstitious and afraid towards mental illness; mainly due to a lack of knowledge. While there were “cures and treatments” for individuals that were deemed insane many were sent to either prisons or asylums. The conditions of these facilities were unsanitary, the physical and sexual abuse was frequent, and the staff was not properly trained to care for patients. Patients were also chained, caged, or restrained to beds in rooms that were often unheated.

Many times throughout one of Ken Kesey’s most famous novels, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the book uses animals as symbols to represent the story’s plot. The animals usually relate to individual characters and their current struggles within the story. Animal imagery provides us with great insight to the themes that Kesey is trying to have us explore, and is a very good tool that the reader can use to help better understand and relate to the characters.

The mentally ill were cared for at home by their families until the state recognized that it was a problem that was not going to go away. In response, the state built asylums. These asylums were horrendous; people were chained in basements and treated with cruelty. Though it was the asylums that were to blame for the inhumane treatment of the patients, it was perceived that the mentally ill were untamed crazy beasts that needed to be isolated and dealt with accordingly. In the opinion of the average citizen, the mentally ill only had themselves to blame (Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health, 1999). Unfortunately, that view has haunted society and left a lasting impression on the minds of Americans. In the era of "moral treatment", that view was repetitively attempted to be altered. Asylums became "mental hospitals" in hope of driving away the stigma yet nothing really changed. They still were built for the untreatable chronic patients and due to the extensive stay and seemingly failed treatments of many of the patients, the rest of the society believed that once you went away, you were gone for good. Then the era of "mental hygiene" began late in the nineteenth century. This combined new concepts of public health, scientific medicine, and social awareness. Yet despite these advancements, another change had to be made. The era was called "community mental health" and

In America, one in five adults has a mental health condition, a staggering statistic. Appreciatively, recovery is the goal in the mental health centers of 2017. Nevertheless, in the 1950s, patients were provided with inhumane treatments such as lobotomies. Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, provides an accurate portrayal of a psychiatric ward in the 1950s. The antagonist, Nurse Ratched, hopes her patients will not recover and manipulates them to gain authority. In contrast with the past, Nurses of the present day treat individuals with respect. Conduct towards mentally ill patients has changed since the 1950s in ways such as public attitude, medication, and

The mentally ill were treated very inhumanly in the early insane asylums. Some of the

Unfortunately, asylum founders could only guess at the causes of insanity. Patient after patient was admitted into the state hospitals, but the cause of their disturbance was often a mystery. Many were inflicted with various organic diseases, like dementia, Huntington’s disease, brain tumors, and many were in the third stage of syphilis. With no treatments available, providing humane care was all that could be done. In the years following the civil war American cities boomed and the asylum began struggling to keep up. Soldiers, freed slaves, and immigrants were stranded in a strange land. The asylum became organized more like a factory or small town. There were upper and lower classman, bosses and workers, patients with nothing, and patients with privileges. Sarah Burrows, a schizophrenic and daughter of a wealthy doctor had a ten bedroom house that was built for her on the hospital grounds. Burrows home was just a stone’s throw away from the hospital’s west wing, where over sixty black women slept side by side. (Asylum: A History of the Mental Institution in America). The hospital began to rely on the free labor the patients provided. However, isolating the hospital from the community meant there was no way of knowing what was happening inside the asylum. The asylum became a world apart. In the 1870’s, Elizabeth Packard, a former patient of St. Elizabeth’s, wrote about her mistreatment and abuse

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