Trump wants to bring back institutionalization

Post Reply New Topic

Trump Cites Lack of Mental Institutions as Road Block for Stopping Mass Shootings

Isn't everyone a potential threat? Or is this lack of innocent until proven guilty only going to be for those who are thought to be mentally ill? Where is the line, if it's including people who have not committed a crime, autism, depression, stress?

Well, we'd have somewhere to put Trump.

He is correct one this one. While the psychiatric hospitals of yesteryear were imperfect and had much to be improved upon, and a person could be involuntarily committed without much recourse, it was not always the case that they were horrible places. The former state psychiatric hospital in my area gave patients a lot of freedom, had a lot of amenities, and generally got good reviews from former patients. The the near complete absence of them today leaves a void that causes the severely mentally ill to languish on the streets, or locked up in jails and prisons where they are treated like behavior problems rather than those with neurological diseases and disorders. This has resulted in many needless deaths.

Personally I would like to see the U.S. adopt some of the solutions to mental health that exist in the U.K.

Today in the U.S. if your loved one has a psychotic break, there is little you can do to get them help. It's difficult to get power of attorney over someone, lack of facilities, and insurance issues often prevent hospitalization even when you have the power to commit them, and if you don't have the power to commit them, the best you can do is call the police and seek to have them "51 50's" meaning they will be placed on a psychiatric hold for a few days, and only if they are a danger to themselves (as in threatening to kill themselves) or someone else. If you look at the state of many of the schizophrenic individuals on the street in the U.S. you will see that the bar to meet the criteria to "danger to one's self" is set very high, and there is no long term care when someone is 51 50'd.

In the U.K. however, people can be "sectioned". This, as I understand it, is somewhere between being committed and a 51 50. They are assessed by three individuals to see if commitment is necessary. If so, there are different levels of sectioning, which range from 72 hours to 6 months, and after care is available.

50% of the schizophrenics we let languish on the street could be rehabilitated enough to become productive members of society if treated were initially forced on them. 60% of that 50% won't relapse provided they continue with their care.

The current state of the American healthcare system is such though, that if you have a family member who develops psychosis, you will likely have no way to get them help, or even be properly evaluated. Some of these individuals don't have schizophrenia, but endocrine or metabolic conditions that are completely treatable. I've seen at least two such individuals on the street, who I knew could be cured completely of their psychosis but for whom I could do nothing to help because I had no way of forcing them to see a doctor and even if I were able to get them too walk into an emergency room, they would likely not receive proper treatment there.

As for people who are a danger, in most instances, they have to make an actual threat, otherwise, the police can't do anything.

This is actually one of the things I actually agree with. Ever since we have gotten rid of institutions, more and more jails have gotten filled with mentally ill prisoners. Wouldn't it be nice if they just went to an institution instead of going to prison for a crime they did that was attributed from their illness? Prisons have become like mental hospitals and institutions for these inmates. That is why Dorthea Hix created them in the first place to prevent them from going to jail.

And there are people out there that actually do belong in one but can't go to one because of the laws we have now. I think Issy Stapleton belongs in one because of her lack of control of her aggression but yet she seemed to be under control of it around her brother when he knew to fend her off so she let him be and went after her sister and mother instead since they were mostly around. My schizophrenic aunt should have gone to a mental hospital when she was getting in trouble with the law and she would have gotten help sooner than getting so worse they finally help her by involuntarily committing her. She fell through the cracks.

It would be very, very good to have a place to put people who can't be left unsupervised. We have A LOT of people living on the streets because there's nowhere else for them to go. We have people wait for months, and months, and months for a bed. My BIL is having some really serious issues right now with a combination of alcoholism, major depression, PTSD, and ADHD (we THINK-- hell, it's practically impossible just to get a competent THERAPIST!!); he's sitting in jail because SIL can't turn her back on him and there are no in-patient psych beds available for even seven days, never mind the amount of time it would take for him to get his head even half-straight.

It scares the s**t out of me knowing that, if I got far enough down to be suicidal again, I would have to literally have a plastic bag over my head before I could get a bed and a professional to give me enough attention to get myself back out of the woods. I'm a LONG way from there now, thankfully, but-- better be diligent about that self-care, because if things start to get hairy, help probably isn't coming until the situation is ON FIRE.

If there were a bed to get my cousin into, someplace where she could spend a few months getting all the heroin and meth and whatever else she's on out of her system, and dealing with all the issues that drive her to keep going back to it no matter how many times her mother cleans her up, maybe she'd be taking care of herself and raising her own kids instead of driving her mother into an early grave (again) with worry.

Back in the day, my grandfather NEEDED two months in Weston State Hospital and a lot of Valium just to figure out that he was going to be able to continue to exist with a bad heart and without a job in the coal mines. As it was, he still came home shaking like a wet dog, counting pennies at two o'clock in the morning to reassure himself that he'd be able to buy milk, terrified to spend a dime. With his level of autism and anxiety, I really don't think God Himself could have pulled Grandpa back together in seven days.

OTOH, the system was dismantled because it was rife with abuse. It wasn't just used to help people; it was a holding pen for feminists and political radicals and anyone who made people uncomfortable and rattled the comfy general hegemony. I remember being a little girl. Grandpa got to that place in the first place because he was terrified to ask for help, terrified he'd be branded crazy and locked away forever if anyone saw. My grandmother did wonders for me and my aunt both when we were kids-- pulled a regular Temple Grandin with my aunt, if the few stories I've heard paint anything like an accurate picture; she was a great deal of the reason I've beaten so many of the odds in my life-- but she lived through the American eugenics program and the times when the solution to every issue was "lock them up." As a result of that, she lived with an abiding terror that someone would SEE. "Don't do that. Don't let anyone hear you say that. Do you want them to think you're crazy??" Ultimately, those fears drove her to a breakdown of her own.

We NEED more in-patient care. We NEED to be able to get people that kind of all-day, all-night help. We NEED to have beds for people who can't be out on the street. We also NEED, we MUST, make sure it's not going to be used abusively the way it was back in the day.

I'm ALREADY scared to leave my house, for fear of what could happen if I were to have a panic attack, or even have to yell at a kid, in the middle of the grocery store. GOD FORBID what could happen if I had to use "the A-word" to explain why I'm flapping my hands against my thighs or tapping the back of my head against the back window of the car while I try to calm myself down. I'm ALREADY terrified of what my crazy MIL can do to me and my family if I don't comply with everything she wants. Imagine the hell if all it would take to have me locked up was a phone call, and I had no voice whatsoever. Hell she ALREADY holds that s**t over my head; at least I know acting on it won't get her anywhere.

Why do you all not believe that anybody who is "different" would be in danger of being ordered there? There is a long history of political opponents put in these places because they are supposedly "crazy".

They were dismantled because of the repeated horrors uncovered. It was not wrong to dismantle them. When they were dismantled there were all sorts of of promises of group homes but the taxpayers did not want spend the money and the neighbors did not want them near where they live so they ended up on the streets. Here on Long Island they are opposing a group home for women with eating disorders. They are going to accept severely mentally ill people as neighbors? Big institutions are bad for mental patients. The same thing will happen again if institutions come back the "residents" will be tucked away and forgotten about.

If you do not want a totalitarian state you have to understand there is a price for freedom.

If you don't want to pay for group homes there are risks also.

New York Times

All we had to do was improve the living situations of institutions, not shut them all down where they will end up in the streets or behind bars or even being put to death.

Well he is extremely out of touch, what do you expect...

It has been found that mental health programs that still allow people facing mental health problems to be a part of the community is shown to be a lot more effective in the prognoses of mental health disorders than long term institutionalization. What we need is better access to those kinds of services for people facing mental health issues as well as less stigma.

Either way I doubt he'd be able to make that happen.

The issue there is there was a lack of mental health services for institutionalized people. They just got dumped on the streets with nowhere to go and no support within the community....so yeah just shutting them down was bad, but I think its more because they needed to work towards providing proper support and services to those people so they could still receive help and treatment.

...

On the one hand, we have Virginia state Democratic Senator Creigh (pronounced Cree) Deeds, who lost his bipolar son to suicide after the young man tried to murder him. As his son was slipping into crisis, he was refused inpatient psychiatric care.
From this article: https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washi ... rror-story (in US News, a pretty conservative magazine)

On the other hand, we have the Titicut Follies, a documentary about the systemic mistreatment of inpatients at a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane in Massachusetts: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/titicut-follies-1968 . From Roger Ebert's review of the film:
A civilized society would be able to find the point of balance between these two extremes, and implement humane mental health policies. Unfortunately, this isn't a civilized society.

Observe in the U.K. that a person cannot be institutionalized for merely being different. And when people are sectioned, they go before a panel of three individuals and have a right to appeal the decision.

Institutions in the U.S. were closed due to collimation of three factors. 1. Changing public opinion on how to manage the mentally ill. 2. A landmark civil right case brought by a woman with sever bi-polar disorder who was rejecting treatment, 3. Conservative politicians that thought the institutions were too costly to the tax payer.

The change in public opinion was that large institutions should be done away with in favor of community based care....small group homes and outpatient care with social worker visits and so on, but after the institutions closed, that never really materialized on a scale that was needed. As things stand now, most group homes are not staffed by professionals in the mental health field, but by people with little training and education in the field, who get paid relatively low wages. There are not enough group homes to meet demand. It's difficult to get anyone into a group home. Most group homes don't take people with schizophrenia or who have mental health and medical needs or who are self abusive or subject to violent outbursts. People with schizophrenia who are difficult to manage and who are combative typically end up in a jail or prison psych ward, and sometimes not even in a psych ward and just a jail or prison where they are not properly looked after.

62 year old Nick Christie Pepper Sprayed to Death
Death of Darren Rainey Whether Rainey was actually scalded is debated by medical examiners but he should not have died in the shower one way or another.
Death of Andrew Holland: Naked, filthy and strapped to a chair for 46 hours: a mentally ill inmate's last days

There are similar conditions in the UK, however the UK also has actual facilities for individuals who's mental illness makes them potentially dangerous or difficult to manage. For example...

Broadmoor

After being hassled by a repeat offender scam artist who has a bad drug addiction last summer, I think that asylums should be reopened, but with staff who do give a rat's behind about their patients.