Up till recently mental asylums were very common and almost all people with severe mental illnesses were sent there for some period of time for treatment. Why doesn’t it exist anymore?
Much of the same policy that led to deinstitutionalization (I love that word) is also responsible for the shift away from orphanages to foster care for orphans and children who are removed from their homes.
A very interesting statistic has arisen in the deinstitutionalization of mental patients with the rise in incarcertation rates.
For instance, if you look at the rates of all “jailed” people (prisons, lock up, jails etc) in 1950 and today, the rate of incarceration is much higher. But if you look at the state mental hospitals from 1950 till today the rate is much lower.
If you combine the statistics, you find they are very nearly equal. This is a strong suggestions that in many ways jails and prisons are becoming a new way to “lock up” people with mental health issues.
Oh true they are definately violating laws, for instance, stealing and therefore are getting correct sentences but if they were committed they’d be getting fed and not stealing.
Though nothing definate has come out of these studies a number of prison rights groups and mental health advocates are looking at this, to see if we simply are substituting one for of lock up for another.
The events that reduced symptoms and allowed deinstitutionalization of psychiatric patients:
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A cure for syphilis, which in its later stages was responsible for a large proportion of psychiatric inmates.
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Antipsychotic medication (Stelazine and Thorazine), which were useful for decreasing symptoms of schizophrenia and for behavior management.
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More societal tolerance for a range of behaviors. There’s plenty of documentation that lots of people were institutionalized and never released for very minor social deviations (e.g., laughing loudly on the street).
In other words, there was a shift in treatment options and description of mental disorders that permitted less restrictive care. As an analogy, people with TB or leprosy no longer get sent to sanitoria, but are treated with medication in their own homes.
I contest the OP’s assertion that psychiatric institutions have disappeared. While the US no longer has the giant asylums it once had, it has a huge number of long term/chronic care institutions, short term/acute care institutions and hospital units, and targeted residential treatment facilities for people with eating disorders, addictions, and and adolescent sociopathy or bad behavior, not to mention halfway houses, group homes, day programs, and community mental health centers.
In short Ronald Reagan and the conservative policies of the 1980s pretty much destroyed the mental instution and led to a rise of the mentally ill in prison. Interesting PBS special on it here:
Mental health services in prison have replaced the institution. So we really only attempt to treat them after theyve been convicted of a few felonies.
No and no. Your assumptions are wrong.
Where did you learn these two facts?
I have to say that I think that we still need mental insistutions. There needs to be some safety mechanicisms in place to insure that nobody is rotting away in a mental insistuion or being held against their will there. That said many mentally ill people cannot take care of themselves. The pro-deinstiionalization crowd doesn’t realize that not everyone with mental illness is not mildly affected, but can still function. It’s like comparing mild mental retardation/learning disabilty to severe/profound MR.
And the thing is…the mental hospitals would be much easier to manage, then in the old days. In the old days Alizhiemer’s and alkys made up a huge percentage of patients. It can and should be a viable option!
There are still psychiatric hospitals to be found. I know VA has at least 3 state run ones if not more.
The term “mental Asylums” though have really gone by the way side.
Here is a story about one of the state run mental hospitals in Washington state.
But if nobody was “being held against their will,” then it wouldn’t be a mental institution. The only reason we have mental health legislation is to force people into treatment.
I don’t know where you came up with your data concerning mental hospitals, but they are still around and they still get used. There is a funding problem with state run long term facilities in my state (like so many other services in so many other states) so you may be right that the overall population is proportionally lower. From my experience, it appears that funding is a bigger issue than de-hospitilization. It can be very difficult to get long term hospital services. It appears to me that there are more patients than beds available.
The Cuckoo’s Nestis still open.
They’re plenty common enough to suit me. And
forced treatment is still around in case anyone’s wondering.
Whoops…sorry. What I meant is that we need to make sure mental hoispitals aren’t being used as prisons or dumping grounds. Meaning, that nobody’s there just b/c of some mild “oddball” behavoiral issues. At the same time…I think there’s too many mentally ill folks out on the street b/c they don’t have the skills/abilty/ resources to take care of themselves.
Heh, I’ve usually amongst mental health professionals that the opposite is true. That the psych hospitals are more likely to have overcrowding and as such, you’re more likely to have people who deserve mental health treatments to be stuck in general populations of prisons rather than being admitted to a psych hospital. And while they’re getting some counseling and treatment in prison, it’s usually not of the same caliber as if they were at a psych hospital.
I think they were all abandoned for twenty years and then leased to masked chainsaw killers. I think I saw a documentary about that.
It was part of some privatization initiative – apparently government masked chainsaw killers are less effective than market-driven, private sector masked chainsaw killers. Possibly because it takes too long to fill out the necessary government forms with a hook-hand.
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You know…wouldn’t mental hospitals be easier to manage now? Back in the old days, the reason they were so mobbed is b/c EVERYONE with problems
was dumped there. Meaning old people with dementia(Alizheimer’s and Parkinson’s) and people with self induced probelms (meaning drunks and druggies)
Now virtually everyone with dementia is in a nursing home, and we have rehab for people with substance abuse problems.
Psychiatric hospitals have geriatric wings too, and rehab facilities as well. Where do you think the people w/ dementia that’s TOO bad for the Nursing homes to manage go to? They tend to fill up quickly and don’t open new spots, as geriatric psych patients tend to be lifers.