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Asylum: A History of the Mental Institution in America, Essay Example
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“One third to one half of those sleeping on the streets today suffers from mental illness.” (“Asylum: A History of the Mental Institution in America”). We still do not have a place for the insane. St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. used to be a safe place for those who suffered from mental illness. Their hopes went away when the doors were shut. Now how and where will we care for the mentally ill? Should the asylum be re-opened? In the mid 1800’s Dorothea Dix was appalled by the way the mentally ill were treated hence she worked diligently with legislature in various states to incorporate 32 asylums including St. Elizabeth’s in Washington, D.C. Her hopes of patient’s full recovery through moral therapy were soon diminished. The population of St. Elizabeth’s grew tremendously following the Civil War “but so did the mistreatment and abuse”, states Elizabeth Packard. (“Asylum: A History of the Mental Institution in America”). Not many patients ever recovered due to the mistreatment and abuse. People simply did not understand that insanity is a disease of the nervous system and only through studying the nerves and the brain together can one understand mental disorders. After World War II the doctors started using psychotherapy to treat shell-shocked soldiers that entered St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. It was not until the 1950’s that doctors at the hospital began using psychiatric medications. However they were under the misconception that they were cured. There was a deinstitutionalization movement during President Kennedy’s reign where people wanted mental patients freed. As a result the mental institution population began to decline. As s result the mentally ill were forced to rely on their families and some were forced to live homeless on the streets. St. Elizabeth’s future would remain bleak without the help of federal funding.
Can an organization push a man to sanity? Ezra Pound was a well known poetic writer who spent some time in all areas of Europe. He had a strong poetic stance with many other writers during the Great Depression. He felt a Jewish banking conspiracy had led the Americans into war. He hated the Bank of England, Jews, Roosevelt, Churchill and others. As the result the U.S. Justice Department jailed him for treason and put him in St. Elizabeth’s for a dozen years. He was not insane at all. He did not deserve this at all. He was later released and returned to Italy in 1972. He did not fit the schematics of an insane person at all. Today under the law a person has to justifiable fit the legal definition of insane under the McNaughton Rule.
In the early 1900’s it was discovered by Sigmund Freud that early childhood experiences contribute to the shaping of the self. “Freud challenged the idea that mental illness is strictly a biological disease.” (“Asylum: A History of the Mental Institution in America”). It is through Freud’s challenges that psychoanalysis began to play a distinctive role in the treatment and analysis of mentally ill patients. St. Elizabeth’s Hospital spent relentless days and hours attempting to find effective forms of treatment for the mentally ill as their patient population grew to double in size. Each and every patient that passed through the doors of St. Elizabeth’s hospital helped to form psychology as we have it today. Some question whether there is a need for asylums and whether they are beneficial to those that are severely mentally ill? I posture that the truly mentally ill need a place to call home where they can feel safe from the outside world and be with others of their own kind. They need a place where they can be medically treated with psychotropic medications to help them live some kind of decent life.
References
Asylum: A History of the Mental Institution in America Retrieved October 3, 2010 from, http://ffh.films.com/PreviewClip.aspx?id=5965
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