How the Deconstruction of Mental Hospitals have Impacted the Mentally Ill
ST ITA’S HOSPITAL, PORTRANE
Before the creation of the Mental Asylum, people suffering from mental illness were treated as criminals and placed into prisons. Once mental illness began to be treated as a moral issue, you had the creation of the Mental Asylum. But did these asylums really help people get better? Can you really get “better” if you are in an environment that might not promote positive growth on your mental health? Mental Asylums also contributed to the negative social stigmas that surfaced throughout communities. “The Crazy House” “The Insane Asylum” Nobody wants to be in a place where they know they will be treated as an outsider and looked at negatively.
President Jimmy Carter wanted to overcome the deficiencies in the mental health system. Even though the Mental Health Systems Act, which provided grants to community mental health centers. The hope was that it would break down barriers and allow people with mental illnesses to learn to cope with everyday people and learn to live and work with everyday people. It would eliminate the sense of isolation and if it was successful, it could help people keep their family members at home. The commission's work led to the formulation of the influential National Plan for the Chronically Mentally Ill, but a system of care and treatment for persons with serious mental illnesses was never created.
In 1969 a study from the California board-and-care homes described long-term mental institutions as:
These facilities are in most respects like small long-term state hospital wards isolated from the community. One is overcome by the depressing atmosphere. . . . They maximize the state-hospital-like atmosphere. . . . The operator is being paid by the head, rather than being rewarded for rehabilitation efforts for her “guests.”
Past President Ronald Reagan has been criticized for his lack of empathy or interest in learning about mental health and many people feel like his policies (or the lack of the carry through) of policies led to the epidemic of homelessness and mass incarceration of the mentally Ill.
This led to the term known as Transinstitutionalization.
Transinstitutionalization A process whereby individuals, supposedly deinstitutionalized as a result of community care policies, in practice end up in different institutions, rather than their own homes. For example, the mentally ill who are discharged from, or no longer admitted to, mental hospitals are frequently found in prisons, boarding-houses, nursing-homes, and homes for the elderly.
Mental Health is a sensitive subject and most people do not understand what people who suffer with a mental illness go through; and don’t understand how they can help. It takes a serious commitment and patience to help people through their mental illness, which is why social workers, therapist, psychologist and psychiatrist are very important. During our visit to the University of Illinois Emergency Department, we were able to meet Debra Riseman who is a clinical social worker that has been in the field for almost 30 years. She has a passion to help people and she has seen many people in and out of the hospital. People like Debra are very important, and it is also important that as a society we work towards providing more opportunities for education on mental illnesses and how to provide support.
Sources:
"transinstitutionalization." A Dictionary of Sociology. . Retrieved March 06, 2018 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/transinstitutionalization
Image Credit:
First Photo: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/isolated-from-the-mainstream-portrane-asylum-in-the-1950s-1.2671656
Second Photo:
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