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Worth revisiting this 1984 NYT article 'HOW RELEASE OF MENTAL PATIENTS BEGAN' 'THE policy that led to the release of most of the nation's mentally ill patient

Worth revisiting this 1984 NYT article 'HOW RELEASE OF MENTAL PATIENTS BEGAN' 'THE policy that led to the release of most of the nation's mentally ill patients from the hospital to the community is now widely regarded as a major failure. Sweeping critiques of the policy, notably the recent report of the American Psychiatric Association, have spread the blame everywhere, faulting politicians, civil libertarian lawyers and psychiatrists....' This is encouraging in Denver but we need a much more serious nationwide approach IMO https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/30/science/how-release-of-mental-patients-began.html https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/30/science/how-release-of-me...

olivermarks 6y ago
'Many of the psychiatrists involved as practitioners and policy makers in the 1950's and 1960's said in the interviews that heavy responsibility lay on a sometimes neglected aspect of the problem: the overreliance on drugs to do the work of society. The records show that the politicians were dogged by the image and financial problems posed by the state hospitals and that the scientific and medical establishment sold Congress and the state legislatures a quick fix for a complicated problem that was bought sight unseen.'