In the nostalgic memoir, “Girl Interrupted,” Kaysen’s imagery helps her share her experience with having to spend nearly two years in a mental hospital after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. The patients of Mclean Hospital spent their days in empty rooms, and some were even lucky enough to have the ability to look out of “ tiny, high, chicken-wire-enforced, security-screened, barred windows.” Some people glorify mental illnesses or mental hospitals, but they do not realize the horror behind having to suffer from an illness. Living in a mental hospital is like living in prison since patients cannot escape until they are given permission by a doctor. In addition, mental hospitals contain “little bare rooms with…
Watching the documentary, the New Asylum opened my eyes a lot. I have heard the saying, “prisons are the new asylum” plenty of times, but I did not believe it to be true until watching the documentary. Before watching it I always viewed the prison system as a very harsh and coercive place, but now I see how much it help people with mental illness. If it wasn’t for the prison system some people would not have a place for treatment. I believe if the government had better funding there would be less reoffender. I say this because once they reenter society they are not able to adapt to normal life activities. In the documentary, the prisoners would be returning back to prison within a month. If they had more steps once they are…
Before R.P. McMurphy arrives, the ward is your basic average mental institution. Men line up to receive their medication, they do puzzles and play cards, and the evil head nurse and her muscle, a group of big black fellows, carry patients off to be shaved or for electroshock therapy. The people can't do anything about it, though. After all, some of them are…
Milos Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest examines the lives of several patients at Oregon State Hospital in the 1950s towards the end of deinstitutionalization movement the U.S. Ive chosen to explore the character of Chief Bromden, a chronic patient diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in the film. The institutional processes of 1950s mental hospitals that may have created dependency, hopelessness, learned helplessness, and other maladaptive behaviors. This is strongly exhibited in the film, through nurse Ratched’s cold, dominating manner of running of the ward.…
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was published in the early 1960s, during the Civil Rights Movement and during a controversial movement towards deinstitutionalization. There were concerns with the rights of institutionalized patients which brought up issues of free expression and conformity, the premises of the book revolved greatly around these issues. In addition, the approach to how psychology and psychology were being viewed were beginning to change.…
The Commissioner of the INS rejected all of the petitions for asylum on January 5, 2000. He determined that a six-year-old child does not have the capacity to petition for his own asylum against his parent’s wishes. The plaintiffs requested that the Attorney General overrule this decision, but the Attorney General decided not to do so. Plaintiff then filed a complaint in district court, but the claims were rejected and the complaint was dismissed. Plaintiff then appealed to the Florida Court of Appeals.…
From the opening of the first scene evidence of stereotyping and mistreatment of mental illness patients is shown. A contrast of dark and light is created from the stage direction at the opening of scene one, “It is day outside but pitch black inside the theatre.” This dark verse light theme is introduced and developed throughout the first scene. At a more figurative level, this contrast can be perceived to represent the insanity within the asylum and the sanity outside. A stereotypical view of the asylum as being filled with mad people is created.…
This thought of others assuming responsibility for those deemed ‘insane’ continued throughout the nineteenth century as well. However, the more populated and industrialized America became, the more accounts there were of insane people locked up and chained somewhere. Many families would do this in order to ‘protect’ the mentally ill from harming both themselves, and others. Unfortunately, along with this increase, the communities also increased in their general fear toward the ill, meaning that most became unwilling to support them as they had in the small communities of colonial America. Instead, many were sent to jail, where they were kept with both violent and minor criminals, debtors, and murderers (Brinkley). Those who were neither in jail, nor locked away at home, suffered in “hospitals” or institutions where they were most often abused as a form of ‘treatment’(Tomes). Before the reforms spurred by Dorothea Dix in asylum culture, not much headway was made on the subject of mental illness. Fortunately, throughout these reforms in the nineteenth century, the prior social traditions in America toward people with mental illnesses changed, allowing for…
Everyone needs some type of refuge. if comfort in life is a need, then refuge is a must . Refuge is very helpful, it has the potential to get things off people’s minds and has the ability to get a person through unfortunate events that may occur or have happened. One thing that is good to do is to seek for refuge and keep moving forward. Depression, stress, and harmful past experiences are all reasons why someone might seek for refuge.…
Asylums such as The McLean Asylum for the Insane located in Boston, The Worcester Lunatic Asylum, and The Northampton Lunatic Hospital have been around for many years. Since the 1800s through the 1950s asylums have drastically changed in appearance, treatment, diagnosis and many aspects of the asylum such as the food patients are given to eat, and what work the patients get to do while being treated. The grounds and buildings of asylums have made significant improvements. Treatment has become more moral and orderly as the decades progress. Each asylum has different forms of recreation and work that the patients are allowed to do while being treated in the early asylums.…
The era of the 1900s- 2000s brought about setbacks as well as advancements of mental health regarding treatments, education, and reform bringing us to where we are today. During the period of the great depression, the population was thrown into a tailspin resulting in the overcrowding of sick, elderly and ill in mental asylums. Families would often submit their elderly relatives to asylums because they lacked the resources or time to deal with them appropriately. The problem with overcrowding developed because the institutions had no established criteria for accepting or rejecting patients into their care.…
In the mid-1900s, the discovery of psychological and drug methods had a rapid succession as a form of treatment and created a decline of patients in asylums. Psychiatrists of this era worked in the asylums practicing “moral treatment” or “moral management”, a humane approach at quieting mental turmoil, this then replaced the often-cruel treatment that then prevailed. This treatment was also based on the belief that the environment was a vital role. Replacing shackles, chains and cement…
Forgein nationals who believe they cannot return to their native country are often granted asylum. Asylum is often granted to individuals who believe the may face death, or imprisonment by returning to their country. Some confuse requesting refugee status with the process of seeking asylum. There are differences between each process. An individual who is seeking asylum is already in the country when they make their request. Often asylum is granted; as the individual fears they will face mortal harm if they return to their country. Many seek asylum as they fear they will be persecuted because of their religious and political beliefs.…
The Frontline episode “The New Asylums”, dove into the crisis mentally ill inmates face in the psychiatric ward in Ohio state prisons. The episode shows us the conditions and every day lives of mentally ill patients in Ohio state prisons, and explains how these inmates got to this point. It appeared that most of these prisoners should have been patients in an institute of some sort, out in society, but unfortunately due to whatever circumstances they ended up in prison. According to the episode, most of the inmates end up in prison due to them not coping with the outside world on their own. Prior to becoming imprisoned, the inmates had difficulties dealing with the outside world. Mainly due to lack of necessary psychiatric treatment, the soon to be inmates would get arrested for things such as violent behavior, robbery, and rape. This behavior would cause them to go to jail, and after repeated offenses they end up falling into prison.…
George Orwell’s “How the Poor Die” is a brief anecdotal essay about his time at a French public hospital, referred to as Hopital X. Orwell gives a brief account of the various pseudo-scientific ‘treatments’ that he and his fellow patients were forced to endure. He compares some of the hospital’s practices, such as the rough bathing required for all new patients, to those of a prison or workhouse. Throughout his essay, Orwell reflects on the history of medicine, medicinal practices and the beliefs that surrounded hospitals.…