Institutionalization Mental Health

964 Words2 Pages

Mental health has been a recurring issue throughout history in the United States. For example approximately 1 in 5 adults, around 43.8 million people or 18.5% of the United States’ population experiences a mental illness in a given year. This issue has been prevalent ever since the mid-1950s which began the deinstitutionalization movement. The movement felt that the mentally ill were not taken care of properly and that the facilities were inadequate. Thus they released numerous mentally ill patients and they would later be incarcerated, and prison would become the new place for mental patients. In the United States mental health must be changed through extensive government means and personal understanding along with care. Plenty of issues …show more content…

The max benefit amount of $710 per month is given by the SSI but people need more. The government needs to update the amount so people can live a successful life and not have to worry about not having enough food. Once the SSI money is spent they have no other incomes usually which this in turn leads to them becoming homeless and when they are homeless they starve, freeze, die and more. The homeless people end up not getting the care they need and this leads them to causing problems for local law enforcement and this leads to the individuals being locked up which is what deinstitutionalization has created. The prisons must be changed by the government especially for the mentally ill. They are too strict which means they do not offer the capabilities that a mental hospital offers. They do not meet in groups to have therapy and talk about major emotional conflicts. If they do meet they are often locked in separate cells. The way they establish therapy is very sharp and scary and ineffective. The government needs to work on updating the therapy offered in prisons. Once the offender is released they are likely to recommit crimes and get locked up especially with a mental illness. Recidivism is what occurs for the people. Those who are released within three years, about two-thirds (67.8%) of released prisoners are rearrested. Plenty of these rearrested have mental disorders …show more content…

Personal understanding is necessary to deal with the United States mental health issue because the individuals do not understand what is wrong, some even see themselves as normal not abnormal. If people understood their disorders better they could effectively treat them with the aid of others. Unfortunately many mentally ill cannot grasp their disorders because to them they seen fine but really they are atypical. Those who need treatment may choose not to get any because they do not have support. People need to find support from others like their families. This will help the mental health issue because people won't feel alone and unloved. The goal is for people not write others off as ‘crazy’, but stigma can cause such slanderous titles. People must understand themselves to fully get treatment and this will lead to them continuing treatment such as psychopharmaceutical treatments like a person suffering from major depressive disorder would need to take a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (or SSRI) like Prozac to feel not depressed. Family support is integral for treatment of a mental disorder because a family member can notice when something is wrong and if it needs further inspection. Families need to care more for their members with mental illness and not just write them off or like in the way past drop them off and never see them

Open Document