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Historical background of mental health
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History of mental illness in usa, essay
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American psychologist, D. L. Rosenhan wrote “On Being Sane in Insane Places” based on his findings from an experiment he conducted within psychiatric facilities. Rosenhan was interested in finding how credible these facilities are with how they diagnose patients. The experiment consisted of eight pseudopatients of different backgrounds who were admitted into twelve hospitals in five differents states across the country. Each of the pseudopatients set up an appointment claiming to have been hearing voices saying “empty,” “hollow, and “thud” (Rosenhan 251). Once admitted into the hospital’s psychiatric facility, the pseudopatients took detailed notes of their experience and how the staff interacted with the patients. With the hospitals not having …show more content…
He talks about how even after the pseudopatients are discharged they are still considered schizophrenic, there condition is just considered “in remission.” “Rather, the evidence is strong that, once labeled schizophrenic, the pseudopatient was stuck with that label… he was not sane, nor, in the institution’s view, had he ever been sane” (Rosenhan 252). Based on the institution’s views on their patients, someone who was once considered mentally ill would always be considered just that. There is no changing the status of a once insane person despite whatever it was that ailed him. Unlike with traditional medicine, there is no way to heal from mental illness. “A broken leg is something one recovers from, but mental illness endures forever” (Rosenhan 253). A person that spent time in a psychological institution will have this status on his record, causing potential problems in his future career or personal life. Rosenhan has such an importance for emotional appeals that he even titles a section “Powerlessness and Depersonalization” (Rosenhan 255). He talks about even as pseudopatients they felt as if they did not exist within the facility. “At times, depersonalization reached such proportions that pseudopatients had the sense that they were invisible, or at least unworthy of account” (Rosenhan 256). If even a pseudopatient, being someone who is not really clinically insane, can feel these kinds of emotions from being admitted to these hospitals, how can we possibly come to understand the emotions a reasonably diagnosed patient feels? This leads us to the question that Rosenhan himself asked in his article. “How many have been stigmatized by well-intentioned, but nevertheless erroneous diagnoses” (Rosenhan 257)? The people that are potentially misdiagnosed with a mental illness have no way of
As a result of the lack of regulation in state mental institutions, most patients were not just abused and harassed, but also did not experience the treatment they came to these places for. While the maltreatment of patients did end with the downsizing and closing of these institutions in the 1970’s, the mental health care system in America merely shifted from patients being locked up in mental institutions to patients being locked up in actual prisons. The funds that were supposed to be saved from closing these mental institutions was never really pumped back into treating the mentally ill community. As a result, many mentally ill people were rushed out of mental institutions and exposed back into the real world with no help where they ended up either homeless, dead, or in trouble with the law. Judges even today are still forced to sentence those in the latter category to prison since there are few better options for mentally ill individuals to receive the treatment they need. The fact that America, even today, has not found a proper answer to treat the mentally ill really speaks about the flaws in our
As science has evolved, so have treatments for mental illnesses have over time. The medical model is described as the view that psychological disorders are medical diseases with a biological origin (King, 2010, pg. 413). Abnormal behavior that categorizes some disorders can be impacted by biological factors such as genes, psychological factors such as childhood experiences, and even sociocultural factors such as gender and race (King, 2010). Treatments such as psychosurgery (lobotomy) , drug therapy (pharmaceuticals), electroconclusive therapy, and psychoanalysis are used to treat a wide range of psychological disorders. Back then, the public’s negative views on mental illnesses also went as far to associate with the people who treated it; psychiatrists. “Nunnally (1961) found that the public evaluated professionals who treated mental disorders significantly more negatively than those who treat physical disorders,” (Phelan, Link, Stueve, & Pescosolido, 2000, pg. 189). People back then didn’t see the point in “paying to be told that they were crazy”. However, in today’s society, it is now acceptable to seek help from psychiatric professionals; we are seeing more and more people seek mental health treatment. “In terms of facility-based records of utilization (Manderscheid and Henderson 1998), the data suggest that the rate of utilization of professional mental health services has at least doubled and maybe tripled, between the 1950’s and today,” (Phelan, Link, Stueve, & Pescosolido, 2000, pg. 189). In the 1950’s, neuroleptic drugs like Thorazine were introduced to treat the symptoms of schizophrenia. These drugs block a neurotransmitter called dopamine from getting to the brain, which in turn reduce schizophrenic symptoms, however there are some side effects such as substantial twitching of the neck, arms, and legs, and even dysphoria or lack of pleasure. (King, 2010, pg.
Mental illness has been around as long as people have been. However, the movement really started in the 19th century during industrialization. The Western countries saw an immense increase in the number and size of insane asylums, during what was known as “the great confinement” or the “asylum era” (Torrey, Stieber, Ezekiel, Wolfe, Sharfstein, Noble, Flynn Criminalizing the Seriously Mentally Ill). Laws were starting to be made to pressure authorities to face the people who were deemed insane by family members and hospital administrators. Because of the overpopulation in the institutions, treatment became more impersonal and had a complex mix of mental and social-economic problems. During this time the term “psychiatry” was identified as the medical specialty for the people who had the job as asylum superintendents. These superintendents assumed managerial roles in asylums for people who were considered “alienated” from society; people with less serious conditions wer...
The Southern Ohio Lunatic Asylum, a sanatorium in which a melting pot of the state’s criminally insane, daft and demented were housed, was later effectively named the Dayton State Hospital, ultimately named 10 Wilmington Place, which completely “derails” past notions of the previous named building, and has now become a retirement home for the elderly. “It must be remembered that popular thinking at this time had by no means entirely removed from “insanity” its ancient association with demons, spirits sin and similar mythical phenomena. Neither was it generally considered in the category of illness and hence the afflicted were viewed with an admixture of curiosity, shame and guilt” (INSIDE D.S.H 2). The author is conveying that there was a misconception toward the afflicted that they were not only insane but also demonically possessed, hence the obscurity of the patients due to curiosity and shame by the community. In such films as House on Haunted Hill in which certain archaic medical experiments were performed on patients that once were housed there; as a challenge a group of people were offered money to spend the night in a house thought to be haunted by former patients years ago. This movie concept is in accordance with the author’s statement about popular thinking and public views.
Since Pat Barker's Regeneration is set in a mental hospital, it seems fitting that questions about mental disease and the definition of sanity should be raised. At the very start of the book, Rivers and Bryce are discussing the case of Siegfreid Sassoon, a dissenting officer of the British army. As they discuss his diagnosis of "neurasthenia," Barker is laying the groundwork for one of Regeneration's many themes: no one is completely qualified to judge the sane from the insane, for insanity finds its way into us all. The ambiguity surrounding the definition and treatment of neurasthenia offers just a glimpse into the ever-changing and highly subjective world of mental evaluation.
The main purpose of the Rosenhan’s Experiment was to test the hypothesis that using the medical model, psychiatrists could not reliably identify the difference in sane and insane persons. Therefore, he got into a field experiment where he succeeded in manipulating the pseudo patients’ symptoms (Huss, 2009). Additionally, the study involved participant observation; on admission, the pseudo patients took notes on how the wards were operated and how they were treated individually. This research experiment was conducted in two parts with the first part involving 8 sane persons who were psychology graduate students in their 20s. The research also involved:
Found guilty of first-degree reckless homicide for killing his girlfriend's five-year-old son. Dakota Black, 25, wept as the bailiffs removed him from the Dane County Courthouse. There were a jury of five men and seven women who decided on the verdict of guilty. The verdict took place after four hours that followed the closing arguments for the case. The homicide occurred at the Sun Prairie home where Black lived with his girlfriend and her five-year-old son.
Once inside the hospital they displayed no symptoms. In order to be able to leave, they had to convince the hospital staff that they were healthy enough to be discharged, so they cooperated with the staff. The result of this study was that the hospital staff didn 't detect the pseudopatients. In contrast, real patients were suspicious that the pseudopatients were not actually mentally ill. Also, Rosenhan 's study demonstrated that normal people can 't be distinguished from the mentally ill in a hospital setting. Once patients are admitted, they are labelled by the staff who give them a central characteristic. They saw only the behaviour relevant to the pathological traits assigned to the patients. However there was no indication that the staff 's distortions were done intentionally. They believed in the diagnosis and interpreted a patient 's behaviour in ways that were consistent with that diagnosis. However, the results demonstrated that the sane could not be distinguished from the “insane” in mental hospital settings. Also, Rosenhan (1973) describes that when a person is labelled as having a certain psychological condition, that “label eclipses any and all of his or her other characteristics” (p.
How can we justify if a man is insane or sane? A man may talk like a wise man, and yet act as if he is paranoid. A man with such manner cannot imply insane to us, we can only anticipate he is sane. In this case, the insane man attempted to persuade the reader that he was normal. However, several pieces of evidence indicated his insanity. In Edgar Allen Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator is insane because he has a serious illness, he cannot tell fantasy from reality, and he hallucinates. By examining his behaviour and mind, I will analyze his insanity comprehensively.
Our group members feel that Rosenhan’s “On Being Sane in Insane Places” is an important topic for psychology majors to explore because of the impact it had on Psychology. This study highlighted the fact that diagnostic labels linger beyond the presence of symptoms. It also showed the lack of attention patients were receiving from the staff at psychiatric hospitals in the time period the experiment was conducted. Beyond the experiment itself, it led to further research which was important to the
Comparison of Here I Am in an Insane Asylum and Ten Days in a Mad-House
As readers of great novels, we are continuously examining and explaining the actions and thoughts of characters. Are we the only ones? Or do the characters actually analyze their own thoughts and actions as we do? In Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, the protagonist, Werther, tells the story of his love for Lotte and the ensuing hardships through letters to his friend and confidante, Wilhelm. Through various situations and excerpts from his letters, we see Werther simply gliding through life, not pondering the motivations for his thoughts and actions, or even questioning his own state-of-mind; the effects of this lack of self-awareness negatively affect him and eventually lead him to commit suicide.
History shows that signs of mental illness and abnormal behavior have been documented as far back as the early Greeks however, it was not viewed the same as it is today. The mentally ill were previously referred to as mad, insane, lunatics, or maniacs. W.B. Maher and B.A. Maher (1985) note how many of the terms use had roots in old English words that meant emotionally deranged, hurt, unhealthy, or diseased. Although early explanations were not accurate, the characteristics of the mentally ill have remained the same and these characteristics are used to diagnose disorders to date. Cultural norms have always been used to assess and define abnormal behavior. Currently, we have a decent understanding of the correlates and influences of mental illness. Although we do not have complete knowledge, psychopathologists have better resources, technology, and overall research skills than those in ancient times.
But asking such questions does not entirely unrewarding, since it is our societal understand which informs our treatment of the mad. Principal to this essay is an understanding of social representations of madness, which comprise of notions what is assumed to be normal within a society, wherein lies the danger of relegating the experiences of the mentally ill as abnormal and something to be rejected. Subsequently, in order to establish whether madness is an individual attribute or social construction, it is important to try to analyse the various differences in representations/ allocations of madness across time and across different perspectives. This essay will provide an insight into the problematic nature of madness, by assessing the contribution of psychiatrists and psychologists, against the criti... ... middle of paper ... ...
In “The Madman,” Nietzsche describes a man going into a town, speaking about his beliefs, and being derided for doing so. However, with further analysis of several elements of the story, a deeper meaning behind the passage becomes clear. Nietzsche argues that morals cannot exist without God, and that atheists must therefore reject morality, and choose what is right and wrong for themselves. Nietzsche does this by using the character of the madman as a mouthpiece to express his own ideas. The first element of the parable that must be examined in order to understand the passage is a symbol, God, which represents morality in the story. The second element to be examined is the madman’s belief that humans have killed God. The implications of this