Comparing the views on mental illness about a hundred years ago and the views on it now, I cannot help but see the considerable difference in how people have changed their views on what mental illness is. In the United States of America many of the reforms made for the mentally ill have helped the public realize the importance of maintaining and keeping the mentally ill in a stable and positive environment.
Well into the late 1800’s, mental illness was viewed as a disease of personal failing or spiritual disease (often people thought that a person who was mentally ill was possessed by the devil) that was incurable. Thus, the mentally unstable often were found homeless, in jail, workhouses, almshouses or institutions. Back then there were very few mental institutions in America and it wasn’t until the very end of the 18th century that the first form of treatment was introduced into America (previously practiced in Europe). This reform, known as the “moral treatment”, stated the idea that mental illness can be treated by relocating an individual to an asylum to receive psychological treatment and a controlled environment. Thus this reform was the one that made an increase in asylums in America possible.
After the Civil War thought, the asylums grew overcrowded (due to the men with postwar trauma) and the quality of care decreased significantly. Physicians would not have a proper training and end up giving wrong diagnosis to patients, the institutions grew overly crowded and many times the patients were abused and ill treated by the doctors themselves or by viewers that would pay a penny (the money went to the asylum, to help with the covering of all medical expenses, for the income received was not enough) to go see the “crazies”, as if they were circus animals instead of humans. Shock therapy, restraints, hypnosis and a new drug they called opium were introduced to these patients during this era.
During the beginning of the progressive era, newspapers started revealing to the public the inhuman conditions in which the asylums local welfare institutions cared for the mentally ill, thus provoking reformers to form National Committee on Mental Hygiene. Thus the new reform known as the “mental hygiene” completely changed the way the public viewed the mentally ill. Instead of viewing a mental illness as a spiritual disease, it was approached on a more physical approach. New science was practiced on patients. New medicine, better treatment and community support was first established during the progressive era. Psychiatric units were incorporated in general hospitals, moving mental health care into the mainstream of health care; making it possible for mentally ill people to not be isolated in an institution.
Two other reforms were done for mental health after the progressive era; the “community mental health” reform, which favored social integration for the mentally ill, and the “community support” reform, treated mental illness as a social welfare problem. I believe that, without the huge scientific approach in the progressive era, we would have not changed our way of seeing the mentally ill as a spiritual problem, and we would have not made so many medical advances that we have made now for the mentally ill, enabling them to live a normal life and not be secluded in an institution. Thanks to the muckrakers that revealed the inhuman treatment the many people faced in the institutions, we have been able to learn to respect the mentally ill and treat them how they should be treated; like humans.
I think that the treatment that patients who the mentally ill receive is much better than how they were treated a hundred years ago, but I think that our society is lacking the one technique that would prove sustainability to the whole community; to fully integrate and educate kids, teaching them how to communicate with people who are mentally ill, and have them interact with them and get used to being around them. That way, a child will learn that someone who is mentally ill is as human as they are, and the person who is mentally ill can learn communication skills from other people his or her age, making it more possible for him or her to be able to live more independently in the future.
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