The Reliability Of Psychiatry Diagnoses

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). .

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

Overall, Conditions in asylums today are drastically different than asylums in the 1800s due to the better understanding of mental illnesses. As time goes on and technology advances, society will continue to advance in it’s knowledge of mental

The conditions of psychiatric hospitals were poorly maintained yet again. From the late 1800s until the mid-1900s, the conditions of these institutions were hit or miss. Despite the rising population of those in need of mental health treatment, conditions were deteriorating across the board. This pushed in the deinstitutionalization movement (Nevid, Rathus, & Green, 2014). This was a push to remove patients from state-run hospitals into a more community-based treatment center. In most cases today, there are treatment plans in place depending upon the severity of the disorder an individual may be suffering from. It’s more about treating an individual with any variety of modern techniques or therapies and trying to reintegrate them into society rather than a lifelong stay in an institution. Deinstitutionalization didn’t work the way it was intended. After it was put into place there was a rise in the homeless population and different programs that were supposed to be put into place didn’t live up to

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.

Evaluation and treatment of the mentally ill population has developed from confinement of the mad during colonial times, into the biomedical balancing of neurological impairment seen in these modern times. There were eras of mental health reform, medicalization, and deinstitutionalization sandwiched in between (Nies & McEwen, 2011). Regardless of the stage of understanding and development, communities have not been completely successful in dealing with and treating persons who are mentally unwell. Fortunately, treatment has become more compassionate; social and professional attitudes have morphed into more humanistic and

Throughout the Great Depression, there were great strides in discovering the science behind mental illness and the treatment of the mentally ill. Scientists tried many new treatments to help people with mental illnesses. Early in the 1900s researchers started to explore what caused a person to become mentally ill. In this time period, Sigmund Freud “developed a number of theories that attempted to explain unusual behavior” (“Mental Health Treatment”). People with mental illnesses were treated more like equivalents as opposed to inferiors starting in the early 20th century. Mental hospitals, formerly called asylums started to have specialist doctors and nurses to treat mental and physical disabilities. (Warwick). The villa system was introduced to mental hospitals in the early 1900s. This was a system in which several buildings were used to keep and treat patients rather than one large building to help individualize treatments (Warwick). Later, scientists tried using lithium and antipsychotic drugs to treat mental illnesses like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and to some extent had success. (“Mental Health Treatment”). The few people who sought treatment in mental facilities had a chance to be cured and treated for their diseases because of new scientific developments (Roosevelt).

In today’s society, mental hospitals are still a potential solution for the mentally ill, but they are seeing a steady decline in incoming patients. Although there is still a need for the mentally ill to be admitted to mental institutions such as hospitals, the reality is that the heightened cost of treatment deters many potential patients. Instead, the mentally

After people began to see the horrors of the mental asylums, the ideas of how to care for the mentally ill had to change. As treatments improved to pharmaceuticals and other methods, the common names of disorders began to emerge. Disorders such as Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia came to be public knowledge. The idea that the problem of mental illness had an actual reason caused others to realize other than supernatural reasons were realized for a reason why all of the people who had mentally disorders were considered crazy. Many neurobiologists have found that these mental illnesses came from a mix of reasons like chemical imbalances, life experiences, the environment the fetus lived in, or inherited traits. From the 1800’s to the present day, many people did not, and still do not, go to the proper places to

Rosenhan’s experiment shows readers that the stigma associated with mental illness have a significant impact on the way patients are treated by doctors. In the experiment, Rosenhan and several other “pseudo patients" intentionally tried to get themselves admitted to mental hospitals in several states claiming to be suffering from schizophrenia. They were easily admitted, and once they got inside the hospital they stop showing any abnormal behaviors. Rosenhan’s plan was to show normal behavior once they got in the hospital to see if the doctors would notice and release them. To his surprise, normal behaviors were interpreted by hospital staff as being part of being diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Two decades ago hospitals were for the physically ill and asylums were for the mentally ill. With the stigma fading from mental illness and a movement toward deinstitutionalization, this paradigm of segregation of mental

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

The contemporary concept of mental illness is a growing public health concern. Around one in six adults in the UK were suffering from a common mental disorder in 2014 (NHS, 2014). Statistics such as this are discovered by numerous modern studies such as the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (2014) which aim to determine prevalence and pattern with the overall aim of offering guidance to the people suffering from these mental health issues, and the disciplines they are involved in. What little stigma remains surrounding the issue of mental illness, is disappearing as the years go by. However, this was not always the case. The rise and fall of the asylum system demonstrate the shift from confinement to care in the community. The following will be a critical discussion of the impact that this asylum system has had on the contemporary understanding of mental health issues, incorporating the theoretical concept of post-structuralism and its underpinning within this context.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, those who were believed to have a mental illness were subjected to stigmatization and often institutionalized. During this time few broad classes of mental disorders had been discovered, so patients were defined by diagnosis alone. However, during the 1980s and 1990s, a major shift occurred in the way mental illnesses were classified and cared for. The National Institute of Mental Health proved that diagnosis alone was not sufficient enough to treat an individual with mental illness, so they added the concept of disability (Manderscheid et al., 2009). The innovations made by the public health and psychology community during this time to better support mentally disabled paved the way for physicians to make more accurate diagnoses. Because physicians could now make these diagnoses, those with mental disorders had the opportunity to receive proper care without being labeled as crazy or mistakenly institutionalized. Although there is still a stigma surrounding mental disorders and illnesses, more and more of the general population are learning that mental health is important to their overall

Pioneers of the modern psychiatric facility include Benjamin Rush, an 18th century psychiatrist often noted as “The Father of American Psychiatry”, and Dorothea Dix, a school teacher who acted as an activist for better psychiatric care and whose efforts eventually led to federal funding of treatment programs (NIH history https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/diseases/index.html). Regardless of these developments, psychiatric care is far from perfect. Presently, psychiatric hospitals and wards are meant to serve as a transition towards normal life for those who are homicidal, suicidal, or otherwise severely ill, often in connection with other programs like residential settings, partial hospitalization programs, intensive outpatient programs, and outpatient