Deinstitutionalization Of Mental Health Care

Institutionalization for individuals with severe mental health disorders in the United States prior to the 1950s was promoted by often ineffective somatogenic care, society’s bias toward the population, the lack of understanding in regards to mental health maintenance and recovery, and the minimal alternative resources available in the community domain. While this environment provided 24-hour care, relief from external stressors, and sustainability for basic needs, it was also a breeding ground for hopelessness and abuse. The development of antipsychotic medications provided a new avenue for symptom management and opened up possibilities for other forms of treatment. Prior to the 1960s public psychiatric hospitals were the sole financial responsibility
This Act ultimately restructured how mental health services were provided and who was authorized to provide those services. It opened the door for non-medical professionals, such as mental health counselors, to treat the mentally ill (Kliemer, et al., 40). Medicaid also began refusing payments for patients in state psychiatric hospitals and mental health facilities in 1965 (Treatment Advocacy Center). Both of these factors further accelerated deinstitutionalization. In concept, the idealism of deinstitutionalization would provide the mentally ill with a better quality of life, and the ability to be independent while reaching their potentials for functioning in society. In application, the reality of deinstitutionalization of the severely mentally ill has in many cases, resulted in homelessness, incarceration, loneliness, and
I do feel that deinstitutionalization fostered the progress of both treatment and the treatment providers. I think that individuals with less severe and moderate mental illness benefited from the shift from institutionalization to outpatient and community care, as treatment options and resources were more readily available. Those with severe mental illness, especially the new generation that were never formally institutionalized, have seemed to suffer the greatest. One third to one half of the homeless in the United States suffer from severe mental illness and receive little to no treatment (Kliewer, et al., 40). Fifteen to twenty-two percent of inmates in state and federal prisons suffer from psychotic disorders and only one in three report of receiving mental health treatment while incarcerated (Kliewer, et al., 40). The severely mentally ill are eleven times more likely than the general population to be victims of violent crime and are often times subjected to inappropriate arrest and incarceration (Kliewer, et al., 40). I believe that institutionalization is still necessary for some of the severely mentally ill as their clinical needs cannot be adequately met in the community. I see