Amy Bloom’s piece “Silver Water” deals with mental illness, which I believe is the theme of this story. I think that this story shows that the United States has a culture of stigmatizing mental illness. I also think that we have a lack of information on how to care for people who are mentally ill. For example, she mentions that Rose, her sister, had a few good therapists and a lot of bad therapists. This shows that these therapists may have not been properly educated on how to handle this type of patient. This is also indicated in how the healthcare system handled the family’s insurance. It is stated that Rose needed to be symptom-free for forty-five days before the long term psychiatric coverage began. This policy does not make sense to me,
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
The fight for improved health care for those with mental illness has been an ongoing and important struggle for advocates in the United States who are aware of the difficulties faced by the mentally ill and those who take care of them. People unfortunate enough to be inflicted with the burden of having a severe mental illness experience dramatic changes in their behavior and go through psychotic episodes severe enough to the point where they are a burden to not only themselves but also to people in their society. Mental institutions are equipped to provide specialized treatment and rehabilitative services to severely mentally ill patients, with the help of these institutions the mentally ill are able to get the care needed for them to control their illness and be rehabilitated to the point where they can become a functional part of our society. Deinstitutionalization has led to the closing down and reduction of mental institutions, which means the thousands of patients who relied on these mental institutions have now been thrown out into society on their own without any support system to help them treat their mental illness. Years after the beginning of deinstitutionalization and after observing the numerous effects of deinstitutionalization it has become very obvious as to why our nation needs to be re-institutionalized.
“When Dad went crazy, we all had our own ways of shutting down and closing off…” (Walls 115).In Jeannette Walls memoir, The Glass Castle, Walls enlightens the reader on what it’s like to grow up with a parent who is dependent on alcohol, Rex Walls, Jeannette’s father, was an alcoholic. Psychologically, having a parent who abuses alcohol is the worst thing for a child. The psychological state of these children can get of poorer quality as they grow up. Leaving the child with psychiatric disorders in the future and or being an alcoholic as well.
Mental healthcare has a long and murky past in the United States. In the early 1900s, patients could live in institutions for many years. The treatments and conditions were, at times, inhumane. Legislation in the 1980s and 1990s created programs to protect this vulnerable population from abuse and discrimination. In the last 20 years, mental health advocacy groups and legislators have made gains in bringing attention to the disparity between physical and mental health programs. However, diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses continues to be less than optimal. Mental health disparities continue to exist in all areas of the world.
As time goes on, the law has put more emphasis on facility just like Bridgewater State Hospital in which many of the actions of the facility workers can face legal consequences such as facing prison time, fines, lawsuits, and etc. Society has a better understanding of why certain people act the way that they do and being more knowledgeable about psychology and mental diseases allows us to have a different approach when dealing with these topics or these individuals. In today’s era, there are many normal individuals who are willing to stand up for those who do not have a voice of their own. I believe that this change in one’s ability to stand up for another individual or group of individuals is what brought about change to the medical environment of those who are mentally
Mental illness is more common than one would like to believe. In reality, one in five Americans will suffer from a mental disorder in any given year. Though that ratio is about equivalent to more than fifty-four million people, mental illness still remains a shameful and stigmatized topic (National Institute of Mental Health, n.d.). The taboo of mental illness has an extensive and exhausting history, dating back to the beginning of American colonization. It has not been an easy road, to say the least.
In his Wall Street Journal article, “Mass Shootings and a Mental-Health Disgrace,” Tim Murphy, a United States representative from Pennsylvania and a psychologist in the Navy Reserve Medical Service Corps, analyzes the correlation between mentally ill individuals and the mass shootings that have been making headlines recently. Murphy has come up with the idea of a new bill: the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act. He says this bill will help those individuals who have mental disabilities get the help that they need before their disabilities get any worse. In today’s world, people with a mental illness get sent to prison if they do something wrong instead of getting sent to a psychiatric hospital where they belong. I think this
There are so many types of mental illnesses that affect people every day. When some people think of mental illnesses they think of the ones that would cause people to have physical symptoms as well, but that’s untrue, there are many more that you would never know anyone has if you were to see them on the street. As defined by the 2008 encyclopedia “a mental illness is any disease of the mind or brain that seriously affects a person’s ability or behavior. Symptoms of a mental illness may include extreme moods, such as excessive sadness or anxiety, or a decreased ability to think clearly or remember well.” A mentally ill person has severe symptoms that damage the person’s ability to function in everyday activities and situations. Every nation and every economic level can be affected by a mental illness. In the United States alone about 3% of the population has severe mental illness and to add to that number about 40% of people will experience a type of mental illness at least once in their lives. Some cases of mental illnesses can go away on their own, but some cases are so severe that they require professional treatment. There is so much more available to help people recover from their symptoms than in the past.
The only instances that cause a debate on mental health is when an individual does something that is criminal or hard to comprehend. The media get experts to look in on the catastrophe, and explain why they did it. Mental Illness is a worldwide problem and is often considered a "Hidden epidemic" as it stretches to institutions like jail, schools, family, and the media. Most mentally ill people are afraid to seek treatment mostly due to the stigma, prejudice, and discrimination that are attached to the label. The Label that comes with being mentally ill often leads to depression. Mental illness is largely misunderstood in the United States and can be treated; the following paragraphs reveal treatment, as well as causes and effects of stigmas on society, poverty, Insurance, the educational system, and the media.
Art is all around us; it’s in music, movies, paintings. It’s a way to communicate with the audience in a deeper level nonverbally. Art has evolved over the years and it encourages us to express ourselves individually. In the movie, Wasteland, by Vik Muniz, is about an artist who captured the lives of Rio de Janeiro. Psychiatric Tales, graphic novel, by Darryl Cunningham, is eleven stories about mental illness. Both of the authors disclose and engage the audience through their personal experience and interests.
A psychological disorder is defined as a deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving (1). This however, was not always the way of viewing psychological disorders. It wasn’t until 1887, when a neurotypical journalist named Elizabeth Cochran lied about having a mental illness to admit herself into a mental health institute or what was previously referred to as and an asylum. Cochran wrote about the awful living conditions of the asylums in her exposè, Ten Days in a Mad-House. This brought attention to mental health and began a revolution in mental health reform. The reform shifted people from viewing mental disorders sufferers as freaks that should be locked up to patients with
In the movie, Silver Linings Playbook, it all started with a man named Pat Solitano who had a mental disorder. He was recently released from a psychiatric hospital and now resides with his parents. He had lost his wife and his job and life just was not happening in his favor. His aim was to win back his wife, which happened to be quite difficult in his case. That is until he met this widowed woman named Tiffany Maxwell, who promised to help him reach out to his wife if he returned a favor and danced with her in a competition. Pat wrote letters to his wife and in turn Tiffany delivered them. We later find out that Tiffany was the one all along writing back to Pat and that she had fallen in love with him. Directly following the dance competition,
The Black Swan is a dark movie that portrays a young, innocent woman by the name of Nina Sayer who is sheltered by her mother, who gave up her career as a dancer in order to raise her. Nina is a dedicated and hardworking dancer who spends a lot of time trying to perfect every move. However, her sexually aggressive ballet instructor reprimands her for being such a perfectionist and accuses her of a lacking a true passion for dance. When Nina is selected to play the role of the Swan Queen in the Swan Lake recital, she is ecstatic that her time and dedication has paid off. As time passed, she quickly let the role consume her life and she spiraled into many different cases of psychological disorders due to an unhealthy amount of stress.
When it comes to mental illnesses, people tend to assume the worst of the patients, what they don’t think about is the people who care for them. They don’t care what really goes on behind the walls of the facility. The patients were treated like animals, and horrendous punishments were given whenever someone misbehaved. Instead of helping the patients with their mental health, the doctors and nurses were making the patients feel worse. Recovery was on the low percentage and thirty-eight percent of the patients in mental hospitals in the 1800s were reported dead.
Many factors contribute to the negative notion of mental illness from the stigmas associated with the illness and the lack of attention surrounding the subject. Although the previously discussed issues surrounding mental illness are very important, through my short yet intense experience as an intern at the West Oaks Outpatient Clinic, I became aware of the lack of knowledge as it relates to mental health on a micro level which then spills over to the macro level of social work, which is a social issue that is of great concern to me.