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Mental health stigma introduction
Mental health stigma introduction
Essay on personal experience of mental illness
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An Unquiet Mind is a memoir of the manic-depressive illness written from a dual perspective of the healer and the healed by Kay Redfield Jamison, the Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. This memoir uses vivid imagery and technically deft writing to bring life to the internal experience of those afflicted with bipolar disorder. This alone makes the memoir capable of educating even those people who might have been formerly unsympathetic to the suffering of people with mental disorders. As a child, Jamison is intensely emotional. At age fifteen, Jamison visited St. Elizabeths Psychiatric Hospital, and was both frightened and fascinated with the eccentricity of the patients and the atmosphere. Jamison did, however, “instinctively reached out, and in an odd way understood” the pain expressed in the eyes of the patients (p. 25). Jamison recounted “everything in my world began to fall …show more content…
Pseudopatients pretended to have symptoms of mental disorders and admitted to various mental hospitals. Rosenhan assumed that if pseudopatients were discovered to be normal and released from the hospitals, sanity could be distinguished from insanity and terms like “mental illness” and “manic-depressive” would be reliable. Surprisingly, all pseudopatients were admitted to the hospitals. Although the patients in the hospitals were able to “‘detect’ the pseudopatients’ sanity”, clinicians and nurses often attributed those normal behaviors to the labeled insanity (Rosenhan, p. 181). Rosenhan found “physicians are more inclined to call a healthy person sick … than a sick person healthy” (p. 181), and “behaviors that are stimulated by the environment are commonly misattributed to the patient’s disorder” (p. 182). Therefore, Rosenhan concluded the psychiatric diagnosis is not reliable, and “we cannot distinguish insanity from sanity” (p.
Although Susanna Kaysen’s rebellious and self-harming actions of coping with her psychosis are viewed by some critics as pushing the boundary of sanity, many people have a form of a “borderline personality” that they must accept and individually work towards understanding in order to release themselves from the confines of their disorder. Kaysen commits to a journey of self-discovery, which ultimately allows her to accept and understand herself and her psychosis.
In 1978, Susan Sheehan took an interest in Sylvia Frumkin, a schizophrenic who spent most of her life in and out of mental hospitals. For more than two years, Sheehan followed Sylvia around, observing when Sylvia talked to herself, sitting in on sessions with Sylvia’s doctors, and at times, sleeping in the same bed as Sylvia during her stay at the psychiatric centers. Through Sheehan’s intensive report on Sylvia’s life, readers are able to obtain useful information on what it’s like to live with this disorder, how impairing it can be for them, and the symptoms and causes to look out for; likewise, readers can get an inside look of how some mental hospitals are run and how a misdiagnosis can negatively impact someone’s life.
The film gives a historical overview of how the mentally ill have been treated throughout history and chronicles the advancements and missteps the medical community has made along the way. Whittaker recounts the history of psychiatric treatment in America until 1950, he then moves on to describe the use of antipsychotic drugs to treat schizophrenia. He critically summarizes that it is doctors, rather than the patients, who have always calculated the evaluation of the merits of medical treatment, as the “mad” continue to be dismissed as unreliable witnesses. When in fact it is the patient being treated, and their subjective experience, that should be foremost in the evaluation. The film backs up this analysis with interviews of people, living viable lives in the town of Geel, Belgium. I would recommend this film to anyone interested in the history of medicine and specifically to those examining mental illness. It provides a balanced recounting of historical approaches to mental illness, along with success stories of the people of Geel, Belgium. And although I had to look away during the viewing of a lobotomy procedure, I give credit to the power of the visual impact the footage
In the 1840’s, the United States started to build public insane asylums instead of placing the insane in almshouses or jail. Before this, asylums were maintained mostly by religious factions whose main goal was to purify the patient (Hartford 1). By the 1870’s, the conditions of these public insane asylums were very unhealthy due to a lack of funding. The actions of Elizabeth J. Cochrane (pen name Nellie Bly), during her book “Ten Days in a Mad-House,” significantly heightened the conditions of these mental asylums during the late 1800s.
...ss. Psychiatrists during World War I, including Rivers and Yealland, aim to achieve, either directly or indirectly, the curing of their patients to the degree necessary in order to justify their return to the battlefield; not for the sake of their mental stability. Both Rivers and Yealland are also very similar in terms of the degree of control and influence they have over their respective patients. While Yealland’s treatments are extremely radical, and Rivers’s are more conventional, they do necessarily achieve the same thing through the great amount of power they have. Chapter 22 gives readers important insight on what Rivers, Yealland, and other psychiatrists actually, instead of superficially, accomplish, as well as affiliating Rivers with Yealland; two characters that might appear to be polarized initially, that actually have more similarities than differences.
The human brain is a vast, unexplainable, and unpredictable organ. This is the way that many modern physicians view the mind. Imagine what physicians three hundred years ago understood about the way their patients thought. The treatment of the mentally ill in the eighteenth century was appalling. The understanding of mental illness was very small, but the animalistic treatment of patients was disgusting. William Hogarth depicts Bethlam, the largest mental illness hospital in Britain, in his 1733 painting The Madhouse1. The public’s view of mental illness was very poor and many people underestimated how mentally ill some patients were. The public and the doctors’ view on insanity was changing constantly, making it difficult to treat those who were hospitalized2. “Madhouses” became a dumping ground for people in society that could not be handled by the criminal justice system. People who refused to work, single mothers, and children who refused to follow orders were being sent to mental illness hospitals3. A lack of understanding was the main reason for the ineptness of the health system to deal with the mentally ill, but the treatment of the patients was cruel and inhumane. The British’s handling of mentally ill patients was in disarray.
Walsh, Jason. "All in our heads: have we taken psychiatry too far?"Irish Times 14 Aug.2010,
Pete Earley, a seasoned investigative reporter for the Washington Post, wrote about criminal justice system for a living. However, it wasn’t until his son was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and experienced a manic episode, that he began investigating Americas mental health system. Earley’s book, Crazy, walks us through his investigation of the mental health system and his own personal story of living and overcoming the mental illness his son lives with. Earley talks about how Mike, his son, had his first psychotic break when he was a senior in college. On a particularly bad night, Mike’s older brother called Earley saying that Mike was getting bad again, and that Earley should come see him. When Earley arrived in
Emptying out and allowing the mind to go with the flow is a practice that has been done for centuries. It is applicable in everyday life and with enough practice, anyone can do it. Emptiness is not an easy state to achieve, but with hours of dedication and a calm perseverance anyone can attain an empty, preconception-less mind. In Daodejing, it gives several examples of how we use emptiness on a daily basis. Whether we recognize that power on a daily basis is another point entirely. If someone is not already utilizing the power of emptying out, then they hopefully will see how strong a soft energy can be. Ultimately, emptiness is not restricted to only be a part of professional life, but can be used in friendly and romantic relationships too.
Much of my skepticism over the insanity defense is how this act of crime has been shifted from a medical condition to coming under legal governance. The word "insane" is now a legal term. A nuerological illness described by doctors and psychiatrists to a jury may explain a person's reason and behavior. It however seldom excuses it. The most widely known rule in...
...pitals and psychiatrists were like that, although he only paints a negative picture of this, it would have been better to see a more neutral sided view of the account of hospitals and psychiatrists during that time. Similarly, the thing that I did not like about Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind was her way of relying on others so much. She was personally struggling with a disease that she needed help with, but she focused too much on herself (although this is understandable as she was in pain and depressed). She really did not care for others and had the empathy to understand the pain that her disease was putting on them as well.
Szasz, Thomas. Coercion as Cure: A Critical History of Psychiatry. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction, 2007. Print. Braslow, Joel T. Mental Ills and Bodily Cures: Psychiatric Treatment in the First Half of the Twentieth Century. California: University of California, 1997. Print.
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.
Doward, J. (2013), Medicine's big new battleground: does mental illness really exist? The Observer 12 May.
Mental illness, today we are surround by a broad array of types of mental illnesses and new discoveries in this field every day. Up till the mid 1800’s there was no speak of personality disorder, in fact there was only two type of mental illness recognized. Those two illnesses as defined by Dr. Sam Vaknin (2010), “”delirium” or “manial”- were depression (melancholy), psychoses, and delusions.” It was later in 1835 when J. C. Pritchard the British Physician working at Bristol Infirmary Hospital published his work titled “Treatise on Insanity and Other Disorder of the Mind” this opened the door to the world of personality disorder. There were many story and changes to his theories and mental illness and it was then when Henry Maudsley in 1885 put theses theories to work and applied to a patient. This form of mental illness has since grown into the many different types of personality disorder that we know today. Like the evolution of the illness itself there has been a significant change in the way this illness is diagnosed and treated.