Should U.S. Bring Back Psychiatric Asylums?

[Gunn]

I found a 2015 article that argues this point. I think the author is right.

Should the U.S. Bring Back Psychiatric Asylums?

Link to the paper

Anybody up for discussion?

Edited November 9, 2017 by Purifier
Forgot link.

[aztek]

our mental health crisis is due to use of  meds,  how about we address with the reason, not deal with consequences,. oh wait,.medical cartel suppresses it, and wont let it happen , they make billions of it, who cares about hundreds of lives lost a year due to that.  that is all there is to this debate

[Gunn]

55 minutes ago, aztek said:

our mental health crisis is due to use of  meds,  how about we address with the reason, not deal with consequences,. oh wait,.medical cartel suppresses it, and wont let it happen , they make billions of it, who cares about hundreds of lives lost a year due to that.  that is all there is to this debate

Even if we dealt with the long term side effects of using SSRI's, removed them, banned them, whatever, that still doesn't solve the number of specific kinds of serious mental disorders in a growing population, that may cause an individual to go on a killing rampage anyway, without being prescribed those drugs.

But since those drugs are prescribed now and part of the problem, we can't just have people with serious mental illness floating around aimlessly, like we've been doing all along, without 24 hour medical care\watch in a mental facility as well.

 

ETA: Besides all that, you think the pharmaceutical companies are going to let anybody screw with them making profits, when they've got the government and supporting mental health experts in the palm of their hands? That would be a miracle to see all that changed.

Edited November 9, 2017 by Purifier

[The Caspian Hare]

Yes, the kooks are out of control.

[Piney]

2 hours ago, aztek said:

our mental health crisis is due to use of  meds,  how about we address with the reason, not deal with consequences,. oh wait,.medical cartel suppresses it, and wont let it happen , they make billions of it, who cares about hundreds of lives lost a year due to that.  that is all there is to this debate

Wish I could like this 10 times. b******* tried to drug the autism out of me when I was a child. Now I don't even touch a aspirin...

[spartan max2]

5 minutes ago, Piney said:

Wish I could like this 10 times. b******* tried to drug the autism out of me when I was a child. Now I don't even touch a aspirin...

That' weird since there isn' a drug for autism. You had some really bad help lol 

[spartan max2]

I think our main issue is funding. No one wants to put their money were their mouth is. Services aren't cheap.

[Piney]

11 minutes ago, spartan max2 said:

That' weird since there isn' a drug for autism. You had some really bad help lol 

The Camden County school system had me seriously misdiagnosed and yes, they are really bad at what they do.

[Gingitsune]

1 hour ago, spartan max2 said:

I think our main issue is funding. No one wants to put their money were their mouth is. Services aren't cheap.

These people with mental health will probably end up in prison one way or another, might as well diagnose them properly and use prison money to finance asylums.

[The Caspian Hare]

You can pay for commitment or you can pay for trial, incarceration, hospital bills, emergency services overtime, etc. when these people snap.

The people who didn't do anything wrong will also pay in a different way as their rights are taken away.

Lock up the kooks. They are wrecking it for everyone else.

[CrimsonKing]

1 hour ago, Gingitsune said:

These people with mental health will probably end up in prison one way or another, might as well diagnose them properly and use prison money to finance asylums.

The scary part is...much like "prison for profit" has become a real thing,what guidlines would our gov use before "loony bins" for profit become just as real...

 

[Gunn]

5 minutes ago, CrimsonKing said:

The scary part is...much like "prison for profit" has become a real thing,what guidlines would our gov use before "loony bins" for profit become just as real...

 

 

Not answering for Gingitsune here, but the thing is, CK, your talking about people being put in those 'prison for profits' long term for minor offenses such as drug use, which I disagree with that type of abuse with the prison system as well, but I don't see how such minor offenses like that equates to being put in a psychiatric ward, when what the professionals are going after is the serious mentally unstable who threaten to either kill themselves and everybody else around them or those who try to do that.

So maybe the rule\guidelines should be - only the serious mentally unstable who threaten to either kill themselves or\and everybody else around them? Much like Devin Kelley? I mean that guy showed all the signs of some serious mental instability and should of been put in one years ago.

[CrimsonKing]

Just now, Purifier said:

 

Not answering for Gingitsune here, but the thing is, CK, your talking about people being put in those 'prison for profits' long term for minor offenses such as drug use, which I disagree with that type of abuse with the prison system as well, but I don't see how such minor offenses like that equates to being put in a psychiatric ward, when what the professionals are going after is the serious mentally unstable who threaten to either kill themselves and everybody else around them or those who try to do that.

So maybe the rule\guidelines should be - only the serious mentally unstable who threaten to either kill themselves or\and everybody else around them? Much like Devin Kelley? I mean that guy showed all the signs of some serious mental instability and should of been put in one years ago.

Oh i agree 100%...just worry about abuses of power and would it be federal guidlines...or does any and all states/districts make up their own 

[Gingitsune]

18 minutes ago, CrimsonKing said:

The scary part is...much like "prison for profit" has become a real thing,what guidlines would our gov use before "loony bins" for profit become just as real...

 

I would say once they get in prison, it's the right time to judge whether they have the skill to be sent back in free society or if they need more guidance. And they don't need to be looked 24/7, they may also be diverse level of surveillance.

That being said, the problem isn't new. As a society, what should we do of these borderline functional individuals? Back in the 18th century, they would be at the charge of their family, as long as they have one that is. Some where ruining their family fortune and sanity, other were abused by their relatives. Then there were the poorhouse and the state asylum, with all the abuse which came from them. Then we have a freer movement where people who really would need help are left on their own device with full right and full consequence if they can't keep their things together.

[Gunn]

6 minutes ago, CrimsonKing said:

Oh i agree 100%...just worry about abuses of power and would it be federal guidlines...or does any and all states/districts make up their own 

Yeah I see what you mean, that's a good question. Hard to say, because I don't trust federal myself, but on the other hand, I'm not sure I trust all individual states either. I mean some states would probably be as humane as possible when taking care of the mentally ill, but some states might be the opposite as well.

Tough call, that one. But it's something that definitely needs to be figured out between federal and state with the right check and balances.

[AnchorSteam]

I dunno....

The drugs are obviously a poor substitute for asylums, we have had guns forever but these mass-murders just keep mushrooming. 

On the other hand, all those Communist countries liked to lock away political dissidents by "judging" them insane. so there is that.

 

I guess we will have to accept their return, and DEMAND some serious oversight on who gets thrown in there.

[Gingitsune]

12 hours ago, AnchorSteam said:

The drugs are obviously a poor substitute for asylums

And on top of it, these drugs are often left to the insane to deal with, some day they take them, some day they don't and some day they take twice or more than they should have...

[skliss]

The school of thought when the assylums were closed is that the best place for the mentally ill was home with family. I think it's apparent that most families don't have the time or education needed to care for seriously ill family members. In fact some family members have warned therapists of their real fears of what their loved ones might be capable of and were ignored. The fact is that some disturbed people need full time care. Plus, imo, when emotion enters the picture it can obscure warning signs that family might miss. No one wants to believe their loved one is a monster.

[Gunn]

We'll people it comes down to this...these mass shootings give fuel to the political anti-gun rhetoric with halfass solutions by using gun control restrictions that really hurt decent and responsible gun owners apart from the seriously mentally disturbed; where most would probably never had gotten their hands on a gun if they had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital in the first place.

Where as, bringing back the psychiatric hospitals is the correct and full solution to solve a nation's growing problem with mass killings. There will of course need to be checks and balances to make sure people working in these hospitals don't take things too far with patients, like they did the last time. Or to make sure certain people who don't belong there, are falsely admitted into those hospitals without a court hearing.

But this is what I know...I don't recall too many mass killings before they started shutting those things down in the late 50's and early 60's and now here we are as the end result. More needless deaths then there should be, while at the same time, fighting for gun rights because of some hidden agendas to eventually disarm the public by using mass killings on a case by case basis, and also to stick it politically to the Republicans\conservatives as portraying them to be totally wicked people for allowing this to happen without strict gun control, in order for them to lose senate seats and votes.

Now I don't always agree with the right on everything, but blaming guns is obviously not the problem and mental health is the real problem that should be fixed.

Edited November 15, 2017 by Purifier

[rashore]

On 11/9/2017 at 3:40 PM, Purifier said:

I found a 2015 article that argues this point. I think the author is right.

Should the U.S. Bring Back Psychiatric Asylums?

Link to the paper

Anybody up for discussion?

I feel that much like other long term care facilities that address things like age and more physical medical needs, there is indeed a need for long term psychiatric care facilities that isn’t being filled. In great part because of how asylums used to be run and the revelations that came out during the era of shuttering the asylums. The word itself has become so negative, that using the term often brings up negative associations only off kooks and criminals. 

Modern asylums do exist, but typically they get labeled as assisted living or home type labels instead of the term asylum. A positive example of modern asylum can be seen in assisted living communities for Alzheimers and other dimentia mental conditions where patients are psychologically and medically cared for.

[Myles]

It's a tough call for me because I don't trust that it would be run correctly.  Is there a great definition for mentally ill?  Could a doctor assign the mentally ill tag to a person who swears they had been abducted by aliens?

Imagine if you had a loved one that you are willing and able to care for, but you are ordered to commit them to a government run asylum.  Would you feel that they are being cared for properly?   Would you be allowed to OK what medication they are given, or would that be left to the asylum doctor?   Seems like the "guinea pig" idea could flourish.

 

 

[rashore]

That's an assumption though- that asylums equate to government run. This isn't so. There has long been a history of privately and religious run asylums as well as government ones. Today's asylums are privately run, and follow rules and regulations just like the rest of the medical world. VA has a branch in mental health too.

There's a lot of daycare and short term facilities for mental health, but there aren't a lot of long term care facilities. We just have a distaste for the term asylum, much like we don't really use the term sanitarium to refer to long term chronic illness care facilities anymore- that term has some negative history too. While the need for physical long term facilities survived sanitarium and are acknowledged today... The same hasn't happened as much with mental health and illness. Mental illness is really scary and dark and sort of taboo to a lot of people- acknowledging that there are people who are mentally ill enough to require an asylum is extra eek for a lot of folks. But that don't mean these people don't exist, and need long term care just as much as a disabled person, or aged person, or other physically ill person.

So, back to gov.. given the history of, and fairly recent deinstitutionalisation of asylums. While I do trust the government as far as regulation goes- like the regulations that physical medical facilities and already existing mental health institutions currently have to follow.... I don't trust the gov to actually run the facilities any more than I would medical healthcare facilities- gov does indeed suck at running those. If the gov ran a superb VA I might feel a bit differently... but they don't. I feel that asylums can be privately run and good for a lot of people that need the long term care.

 

 

 

[Gunn]

2 hours ago, Myles said:

It's a tough call for me because I don't trust that it would be run correctly.  Is there a great definition for mentally ill?  Could a doctor assign the mentally ill tag to a person who swears they had been abducted by aliens?

Imagine if you had a loved one that you are willing and able to care for, but you are ordered to commit them to a government run asylum.  Would you feel that they are being cared for properly?   Would you be allowed to OK what medication they are given, or would that be left to the asylum doctor?   Seems like the "guinea pig" idea could flourish.

 

 

Just wanted to say, you made some good points here, Myles, although Rashore just made some good points too, but apart from all that, we're talking about admitting individuals who are a threat to themselves and have threaten others around them and not really the "I was abducted by aliens" individuals. Just wanted to be clear on that.

 

[Myles]

15 hours ago, Purifier said:

Just wanted to say, you made some good points here, Myles, although Rashore just made some good points too, but apart from all that, we're talking about admitting individuals who are a threat to themselves and have threaten others around them and not really the "I was abducted by aliens" individuals. Just wanted to be clear on that.

 

I'm just not sure I'd trust those deciding this. 

[skliss]

And I think there needs to be a definite distinction between the insane and the criminally insane with facilities for both.