Harper's Column: My Spiritual Devotional

  Unraveling Factors Contributing to a Failing Mental Health System in the United States The Scapegoat             There is no shortage of documentation that points to stigma as a primary factor negatively impacting the mental health system in the United States.  The plethora of documentation pointing to stigma as the main cause for failure to seek treatment is convincing until you dig a bit deeper.  More in-depth research begins to reveal a mental health system that is misguided and in shambles.  Stigma is no doubt the scapegoat used to ignore the real issues within the mental health sector.              According to Jaffe (n.d.), the stigma of mental illness is a myth.  “There is no stigma to having a neurobiological disorder (serious mental illness), the same way there is no stigma to being African-American or HIV positive or tall, short, inny, ...

  The Bureaucracy of Noble Intent In 1840, activist Dorthea Dix was compelled in her fight to improve the quality of life and living conditions of those with mental illness.    After lobbying for more than 40 years, Dix successfully persuaded the U.S. government to fund the building of 32 state psychiatric hospitals.    Hence the institutional inpatient care model was born, a laudable change indeed.    By the mid-1960s, community-based mental health care became largely a global movement due to the decline in the living conditions in over-crowded and underfunded state hospitals and asylums, also a laudable change.   Let’s take a critical look at the implementation of both care models to determine the possible root causes of long-term failure in the mental health policies and care models.    Below are a list of the pros and cons for each care model as well as the criticisms that occurred over time.     Institutional Inpatient Men...

  Prevalence and Healthcare Policy The hard truth is that mental illness occurrences are significantly higher than what is reported by research studies.    The Surgeon General expresses that very few people in a population are untouched by mental illness either directly or indirectly in their lifetime.    More importantly, mental illness is often the underlying cause of many other healthcare-related events. Limited access to mental health care  and the  laws governing the privacy rights of those who have mental illness  make the known prevalence challenging to ascertain.    Therefore, the research offering such information is likely only a small percentage of what the reality is.    The mental health sector does not report to the CDC, watchdog for epidemics.    There is no single agency tasked with overseeing the state of mental health in America.    Below are statistics based on what was known at the time r...