British Asylums

Although the 19th century expansion of asylums in Europe and The United States was a movement initially based on moral principles, it led to significant negative implications for individuals, who were institutionalized as asylums became overcrowded, lacking hygiene, neglectful of patients and an overall place for poor living conditions (Wright, 1997). The rise in in-patient population in the early 19th century and patients’ inabilities to reintegrate into the community as a result of institutionalization have often been explained in terms of the mental health system and developments in psychology at the time. Sociologists on the other hand, have argued that these institutions have caused people to remain institutionalized. A compelling

As you will see in this paper, mental illness has been a serious situation for many years. Over the years, there have been different thoughts relating to the causes of mental illness including what the actual situation is and observance of how to treat the mentally ill. This paper will inform you of three different historical periods: Colonial America, Depression & the New Deal and War & Prosperity in which an important aspect of mental health happened in each. I will include some religious and economic information for each period due to the relationship that religion and economy had to the way mental illness was viewed and treated in those periods.

I am against the passing of this bill for a multitude of reasons.First of while elastically examine this bill it is clear to see the blatant flaws. To start of in the to statement it reads, To require the state of New Jersey to grant asylum to a minimum of 15,000 refugees each year. The choice of the word minimum means that if 15,000 refugees are somehow not conjured up then the state of NJ has to pay an egregious fine. Which is my next point the fines in this bill are outrageous. The idea that New Jersey would be fined 1,000,000 dollars if it does not take in 15,000 refugees in unrealistic, especially considering according to U.S. State Department on 75 refugees have settled in New Jersey since the star of this

brain, or sending patients to institutions, doctor prescribed pills to try and treat mental conditions. In addition mental health patients were no longer being institutionalized due to the poor conditions in mental institutions (History of Mental Illness”)

Overall, Conditions in asylums today are drastically different than asylums in the 1800s due to the better understanding of mental illnesses. As time goes on and technology advances, society will continue to advance in it’s knowledge of mental

A lot of thoughts and observations come to mind while watching The New Asylums. This is a documentary about life in prison for people who have mental diseases, so some of the thoughts and observations are actually quite sad. Many of the prisoners shown in the documentary look sad and defeated, and they have a right to, because having a mental disease even in the real world is very hard. In prison, they are allowed to refuse their medication, although at least there are people who will try to help them. Still, it looks miserable, even more miserable than prison looks for people who aren't suffering from a disease like schizophrenia. Mental illness is often used as the punch line of a joke, but like most other punch lines, it isn't that

The mood shifted from hiding the mentally ill to curing the mentally ill. The definition of mentally ill was expanded to include anyone in the family that was unable to help the family in terms of survival and drained their family of money and resources: the aged, the epileptic, and the imbecilic. This caused massive overcrowding. The mentally ill were hidden from the public view along with the elderly and others suffering from debilitating disorders resulting in massive overcrowding of asylums which meant illnesses were not being treated in lieu of managing the ever expanding population.

Illness is one of the few experiences that all humans have in common and generally is met with empathy. However, people who suffer from mental illness are not privy to this treatment. For centuries, mental disorders have been demonized and stigmatized even in the modern era where humans have a much better understand of the mechanisms of the mind. Before the advent of psychiatry in the eighteenth-century people believed that mental illness was actually demonic possession resulting in the ostracization and murder of the mentally ill in the name of God. The Victorian era was met with a different view of mental illness, in that it was understood that it was a malady of the mind and people needed constant medical treatment, thus federally mandated asylums were created. Since mental illness was not understood there was a lot of misconceptions and fear surrounding the field. It is no surprise that the master of macabre and the creator of Horror, Edgar Allen Poe, decided to explore themes of mental illness in his stories. Poe’s most famous story about mental illness was The Fall of the House of Usher, where the main characters are plagued with an undisclosed mental malady. Through Poe’s use of point of view, style, tone, and tropes, he painted a perfect picture of the Victorian view of the mentally ill and the mind of the artist which was believed to be different faces of the same coin.

Unfortunately, asylum founders could only guess at the causes of insanity. Patient after patient was admitted into the state hospitals, but the cause of their disturbance was often a mystery. Many were inflicted with various organic diseases, like dementia, Huntington’s disease, brain tumors, and many were in the third stage of syphilis. With no treatments available, providing humane care was all that could be done. In the years following the civil war American cities boomed and the asylum began struggling to keep up. Soldiers, freed slaves, and immigrants were stranded in a strange land. The asylum became organized more like a factory or small town. There were upper and lower classman, bosses and workers, patients with nothing, and patients with privileges. Sarah Burrows, a schizophrenic and daughter of a wealthy doctor had a ten bedroom house that was built for her on the hospital grounds. Burrows home was just a stone’s throw away from the hospital’s west wing, where over sixty black women slept side by side. (Asylum: A History of the Mental Institution in America). The hospital began to rely on the free labor the patients provided. However, isolating the hospital from the community meant there was no way of knowing what was happening inside the asylum. The asylum became a world apart. In the 1870’s, Elizabeth Packard, a former patient of St. Elizabeth’s, wrote about her mistreatment and abuse

The history of mental health in the United States show a robust movement towards the mental healthcare system we have today. Prior to the 19th century, individuals with mental health issues were widely considered to be demonically possessed, thus contributing to the stigmatization of mental illness and the proliferation of poor treatment conditions. However, in the 1800s, there was a dramatic change in mental healthcare in the U.S. The government took a proactive role in treating the mentally ill, leading to the dawn of state psychiatric facilities.

What comes to mind when you hear the words “insane asylum”? Do such terms as lunatic, crazy, scary, or even haunted come to mind? More than likely these are the terminology that most of us would use to describe our perception of insane asylums. However, those in history that had a heart’s desire to treat the mentally ill compassionately and humanely had a different viewpoint. Insane asylums were known for their horrendous treatment of the mentally ill, but the ultimate purpose in the reformation of insane asylums in the nineteenth century was to improve the treatment for the mentally ill by providing a humane and caring environment for them to reside.

During the mid-1800’s the mentally ill were either homeless or locked in a cell under deplorable conditions. Introduction of asylums was a way to get the mentally ill better care and better- living conditions. Over a period of years, the admissions grew, but staff to take care of their needs did not. Asylums became overcrowded and treatments that were thought to cure, were basically medieval and unethical

The mentally ill were cared for at home by their families until the state recognized that it was a problem that was not going to go away. In response, the state built asylums. These asylums were horrendous; people were chained in basements and treated with cruelty. Though it was the asylums that were to blame for the inhumane treatment of the patients, it was perceived that the mentally ill were untamed crazy beasts that needed to be isolated and dealt with accordingly. In the opinion of the average citizen, the mentally ill only had themselves to blame (Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health, 1999). Unfortunately, that view has haunted society and left a lasting impression on the minds of Americans. In the era of "moral treatment", that view was repetitively attempted to be altered. Asylums became "mental hospitals" in hope of driving away the stigma yet nothing really changed. They still were built for the untreatable chronic patients and due to the extensive stay and seemingly failed treatments of many of the patients, the rest of the society believed that once you went away, you were gone for good. Then the era of "mental hygiene" began late in the nineteenth century. This combined new concepts of public health, scientific medicine, and social awareness. Yet despite these advancements, another change had to be made. The era was called "community mental health" and

Everyone is different in society. There are special individuals, which are affected by mental health illnesses. Mental health issues can affect society both negatively and positively. There are cultures that treat these individuals like the reincarnations of gods. On the other side, there are cultures that isolate these individuals and look for cures to these pathologies. Mental health illnesses are important because they have to be studied to understand their cause, whether it may be biological or environmental. These issues are important because like every type of illness they have to be delicately studied, focusing on treatments to either cure them or reduce the symptoms of the pathology. These people were either conflicted with the ideals of society or they were praised by it. Cultures, which didn’t accept them, closed them up into asylums. Patients inside these facilities were brutally used as guinea pigs for their experiments. The way these people were treated shows how cruel and ignorant people were to the unknown. By learning from histories mistakes we can move forward in improving our society and achieve greatness.

This paper will explain how poverty and mental illness go hand in hand. Mental illness seems to be a cause and effect situation. Sometimes mental illness causes poverty and other poverty causes the mental illness. This paper will also give possible solutions for the problem.