Involuntary Outpatient Commitment
In 1955, over 559,000 individuals resided in inpatient psychiatric hospitals. By 1995, however, the number had drastically diminished to 69,000, (National Health Policy Forum, 2000). This drastic reduction was largely due to the discovery of antipsychotic medications in the 1950s, and the deinstitutionalization movement of the 1960s, wherein several thousands of mentally ill individuals were released from psychiatric institutions to return to their communities for treatment. Mental health centers (MHCs) were conceptualized during deinstitutionalization to provide treatment to these newly-released mentally ill persons in their communities. Although efforts were well-intended, the MHCs failed to serve the neediest subset of individuals. Instead, they served those who had minor psychiatric diagnoses and needed little treatment. As a result, the United States experienced an increase in the number of homeless individuals, most of whom still exhibited psychotic symptoms. Involuntary Outpatient Commitment (IOC) was created to serve those “forgotten” mentally ill individuals without placing them back in institutions. Ideally, IOC will increase community tenure for the severely mentally ill, decrease the likelihood of decompensation, and provide the necessary treatment by means less restrictive than hospitalization, (Borum et al., 1999).
IOC is a civil procedure whereby a judge orders a person with a mental illness to comply with outpatient treatment within the community, or risk sanctions such as being forcibly brought to treatment by law enforcement officials, (Swartz et al., 2003). The legal authority in IOC is the state’s parens patriae power, which provides for the protection of disabled individuals, and its police power, which involves the protection of others. IOC is commonly used for persons with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or other psychoses, especially if there is a history of medication non-compliance or repeated inpatient psychiatric admissions, (Torrey & Kaplan, 1995). The national Department of Mental Health receives a certain amount of money each year from the federal government. From this, state mental health departments draw a significant amount of their funds. It is through the state mental health departments that IOC is largely funded. Although IOC is delivered at the local level, those municipalities...
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...IOC as it is currently stated.
As discussed above, I feel that IOC would be most effective if other components were combined with it, if there was a way to ensure that treatment staff wholeheartedly attempts to rehabilitate individuals, and if treatments last longer than six months. Additionally, more money needs to be supplied to local mental health centers to ensure that treatment is adequate. Although many might oppose more money going into a service sector that they believe is already receiving too much money, I believe if social workers and other mental health advocates could show the public how necessary IOC is, getting an increase in resources would not be difficult to procure.
In closing, IOC was created to serve those mentally ill individuals who need treatment, but not necessarily in an inpatient setting or through voluntary treatment. IOC possesses several strengths that exhibit its utility in today’s society. As social workers, although we may disagree with the coercion element of it, we should endorse IOC, as it only betters the lives of mentally ill individuals who are largely misunderstood, largely under treated, and largely deserving of our support.
A huge factor in the prevalence of mental health problems in United States prison and jail inmates is believed to be due to the policy of deinstitutionalization. Many of the mentally ill were treated in publicly funded hospitals up until the 1960’s. Due to budget cuts and underfunding of community mental health services we ...
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.
In Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” she writes about a child who is locked in a dungeon like room and how people come in and some kick the child so it will get up and how some people never go close to the child. Many of those people knew they had the choice of allowing an innocent child to suffer certain death or rid their selves of the comfort and leave their precious city of Omelas, there was some that stayed and then there was some that just left.
States obtain many services that fall under mental health care, and that treat the mentally ill population. These range from acute and long-term hospital treatment, to supportive housing. Other effective services utilized include crisis intervention teams, case management, Assertive Community Treatment programs, clinic services, and access to psychiatric medications (Honberg at al. 6). These services support the growing population of people living in the...
It is nearly impossible to walk between any two points in New Haven without being affected in some small way by our city’s homeless problem. On seeing these people, in many cases, it becomes clear that they suffer from some mental disability that, unaided, will obviously impede their living a normal life. In fact, according to the Report of the Federal Task Force on Homelessness and Severe Mental Illness, one in every three homeless people suffers from a severe mental illness, most of which are treatable. In a country that devotes so many resources to various welfare programs for nearly every group, how can this problem persist? The answer to this question lies in a major national policy shift, deinstitutionalization, which occurred progressively between 1960 and 1980. Though deinstitutionalization addressed a necessary problem, in practice, it only worsens the problems facing the mentally disabled and society at large. What prevailing social ideas and changes brought an end to our nation’s established system of state psychiatric hospitals? What is the logic behind our new and inefficient system of community centered outpatient mental health?
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.
“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” written by Le Guin revolves around the central theme of right and wrong. The people of Omelas are given two choices, they can live in a beautiful city where the only rule is to always feel happy, and to never feel guilty, or to feel guilty and leave the city of Omelas. The crutch on their happiness is the unhappiness and even cruel treatment of a young child named It living in a dark room. Once in their life their life they go down and see whom they call It, some feel sad and fall silent for a short while then go back to being happy living in Omelas. While others take one look at It then turn around and walk straight out of the “beautiful gates” of Omelas (600). Ursula K. Le Guin 's short story "The Ones
...s a bigger and harder step not very many citizens of the world today are willing to do. Loosing the happiness that one gets in exchange from injustice in the world is an action that is unthinkable to humankind. The right ethical decision has to be made to entirely resolve the issue, but making that right ethical decision is impossible with the other factors of life such as personal happiness. In “The One Who Walks Away From Omelas” the reader is taught the importance of making the right ethical decision and can relate these morals in their own community. One cannot just choose to ignore, one cannot just choose to observe and still do nothing, and one cannot just simply walk away. The reader is taught the momentous moral of not being a bystander, the importance of moral responsibility, and the great significance in learning to overcome the ethical issues in society.
Those with mental illness would live in the community with an array of services and be able to be free from the constraints of confinement. In the early 1960’s the United States began an initiative to reduce and close publicly-operated mental hospitals. This became known as deinstitutionalization. The goal of deinstitutionalization was to allow people suffering from mental illness to live more independently in the community with treatments provided through community health programs. Unfortunately, the federal government did not provide sufficient ongoing funding for the programs to meet the growing demand. States reduced their budgets for mental hospitals but failed to increase funding for on-going community-based mental health programs. As a result of deinstitutionalization hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people were released into the community without the proper resources they needed for their treatment. (Harcourt,
In “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin, an ethical dilemma is described when the suffering of one individual is traded for the benefit of many. Those citizens outside the city of Omelas and the reader can see this as a perfect society, that is appreciated by many at the expense of one child. The problem/dilemma is introduced when the child, who they call “it”, is being tortured as said in the story, “In the basement under one of the beautiful public building of Omelas.” This signifies that the happiness of everyone in Omelas depends on this child’s “abominable misery.” It also demonstrates the concepts of morality and ethics. Both morality and ethics are shown to be the action of a right or wrong, good or bad behavior
In William Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest,” the major themes in these play is good versus evil. There are good characters, which do good, help others and try their best to stay out of trouble and there are other characters are the exact opposite. All the characters do is tried to get even with those who hurt them, hoping that ravage would solve the problem. Good and Evil just like the theme of the book also applies to the world that we live in today because there are good people and there are bad people. Good will
Morality and ethics are a construct of one’s own self, whether they are good is completely up to that society’s idea of normality of the time period you lived. But there is hope. Plato believed that art is a poor replica of nature, and that if art does not teach some sort of moral or ethical lesson to its audience that it was damaging. William Shakespeare, master author as it were, wrote in such depth that one could analyze his works under every lens known to man and come up with the different yet correct conclusion. Because of that I think the best and most efficient way to analyze Shakespeare, this is definitely the case for The Tempest, is through the lens of the moral school of criticism.
In the short story, “The Ones who walk away from Omelas”, by Ursula K Le Guin, it maintains, “Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? The let me describe one more thing,” (Guin, 36). This is a perfect example of how with all good, there is always some sort of catch, some sort of evil. The story is about a utopian society that is purely joyous and wonderful. The reason everything runs so smoothly in the society is due to the fact there is a little six year old kid who is starved to death below the city. The young child plays a gigantic role in their society because his sorrow as well as suffering allows everyone else to be joyful, and these people understand this. The young child must is forced to live down
In conclusion, generally speaking the Law of Supply states that when the selling price of an item rises there are more people willing to produce the item. Since a higher price means more profit for the producer and as the price rises more people will be willing to produce the item when they see that there is more money to be earned. Meanwhile the Law of Demand states that when the price of an item goes down, the demand for it will go up. When the price drops people who could not afford the item can now buy it, and people who are not willing to buy it before will now buy it at the lower price as well. Also, if the price of an item drops enough people will buy more of the product and even find alternative uses for the product.
...top positions in the governmental and business hierarchy from communal principles and beliefs. Majority come from the upper third of the salary and professional pyramids, their upbringings were from the same upper class, some attended the same preparatory school and Ivy League universities. Also, they belong to the same organizations. The power elite have the power to control programs and actions of important governmental, financial, legal, educational, national, scientific, and public institutions. The ones in power influence half of the nation’s manufacturing, infrastructures, transportation, banking possessions, and two thirds of all insurance possessions. The occupants take essential actions that could affect everyone’s’ life in American society. Rulings made in meetings of significant corporations and banks can influence the rates of inflation and unemployment.