Rehabilitation Vs Rehabilitation

Mental illness poses many obstacles in rehabilitation. For instance, mental illness is not something that can be completely cured. The symptoms can be lessened, and a mentally ill person may be able to live a productive life if they receive treatment and /or medication. However, they will still have diagnoses of mental illness. Rehabilitation of mental ill inmates should consist of helping the individual to recover from lost skill, coping with everyday demands, and restoring broken relationships. The rehabilitation may also have to focus on specific issues such as substance abuse. A constraint of rehabilitation in the correctional system is the emphasis that are placed on punishment. The focus on punishment makes it difficult to develop effective rehabilitation programs. (Benson, 2003.). The purpose of rehabilitation is to prepare the offender to re-enter society as a valued member. The goal of rehabilitation programs is to reform a prisoner from committing crimes and assisting them in beginning “normal” lives without committing future crimes. Programs help to identify potential skills through vocational training and help to educate prisoners through basic
education. Rehabilitation programs also focus on specific needs, such as substance abuse issues, which help to promote a healthy recovery. In regard to the mentally ill prisoner rehabilitation may include counseling so that the prisoner learns how to deal with his/her psychological problem. The rehabilitation may need to be altered in order to prepare the mentally ill prisoner for his or her return to society. Unfortunately, it is often a struggle implementing these types of programs because psychologist working in the correctional system generally have overwhelming caseloads. Another issue is the need to follow- up with the mentally ill prisoner after they are released back into society to ensure that he or she is getting the proper assistance needed. Contributing factor of failure will be discussed in the next section on recidivism. (Benson, 2003). The first step for rehabilitation is to assess the needs of the individual that suffers from mental illness.
Assessment is an essential step in planning and development of what the offender will need for services which will enable the offender to achieve, maintain, or even restore an acceptable or optimal level of social independence or quality of life. Mental health professionals use measurement of need to inform service provisions for those with mental illness, much like the psychological theories that have employed concepts of need, such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1954). Needs arise as a result of social disablement, this occurs in individuals that experience lowered psychological, social, and physical functioning in comparison to social norms. (Adam & Ferrandino,
2008). Not all people with mental illness will benefit from the same types of rehabilitation. Some individuals have chronic and even disabling types of mental illness, which causes the misinterpretation of social cues, inappropriate responses to situations and problems coping with stress. Whether an individual with mental illness has never been able to learn social skills levels or has lost them, most individuals with severe mental illness have marked skill deficits in social and interpersonal situations which will require a specialized rehabilitation plan. (Benson,