Wow. Powerful, beautiful, poignant.
DDD, I too, was introduced to mental health treatment via books and Hollywood, i.e. "Will there ever be a morning," by Francis Farmer, which instigated changes in mental health in the 50s, as well as "The Snake Pit," with-Oliva DeHavilland, which was the first time I'd ever seen an ice bath.
Both literary treatments were highly sympathetic, but I recall that society's knee-jerk reaction was to open the doors and let everyone out, with-no therapy, no medications, no job skills, no sleeping arrangements, nada.
Can't say which is worse, just that neither works.
I have to take issue with-the wording in the Human Rights section, (don't know if this is merely semantics or truly philosophical). They talk about self-definition and self-determination. I can't speak for what happened 100 yrs ago, but from what we're all experiencing on this bb, it's because so many of these people (or many of us) cannot define themselves/ourselves or see themselves clearly, or admit they need help, that they end up being a danger to themselves or at least, unable to hold down a job.
Our local papers have had a couple of articles recently about how so many of the state's prison inmates are mentally ill, and how they get little or no treatment. I was not one bit surprised.
What to do about it? It made me want to hire more, and better trained social workers. The SW who work in the system now seem to start out all starry-eyed, and end up being pencil pushers. Many of them are ill-trained for their positions, understanding mental illness or the criminal mind in theory but not in practice. And most have unbelievably huge caseloads.
There is no one, single answer. But asking questions is always a good place to start.
