4 ms·

I mean shouldn’t we look further? What does one crazy guy removing teeth in the 1920s have to do with dismantling the asylum system? Where do insane people go

I mean shouldn’t we look further? What does one crazy guy removing teeth in the 1920s have to do with dismantling the asylum system? Where do insane people go now? I feel like unfortunately it’s just to the streets, which isn’t good for anyone. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/should-the-us-bring-back-psychiatric-asylums/384838/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/should-th...

klyrs 4y ago
We should certainly look at present conditions, and do what we can to ameliorate them. That "one crazy guy" was rather emblematic of the times -- people institutionalized were subject to horrific treatment and abuses. OP said "look no further" for reasons that the system was dismantled. It wasn't this one "bad apple", the rot had spread far and wide and the system needed to be purged. Unfortunately, it also needed to be rebooted with a different culture rooted in humane care, and that has not happened on the scale that our society needs. But there's the rub. The American way is to scale things up, and industrialize them. I've seen the inside of a few mental health wards when friends of mine have been committed. They can still be pretty awful, and I don't want to see them scaled up. I don't think that is a problem that can be solved with bigger, more industrial, institutions. I look to Geel[1] as an aspirational model, but I'm not sure such a thing is compatible with American culture. To properly address mental health problems, we need a profound cultural shift. Bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, really. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/01/484083305/for-centuries-a-small-town-has-embraced-strangers-with-mental-illness https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/01/4840833...
- BizarroLand 4y ago
  Teeth puling wasn't the worst thing that happened either. Electroshock therapy, immersion therapy, lobotomies... the list of inhumane experiments trialed on the mentally ill to "rescue" them from their subhuman status is horrifically incalculable.

klyrs 4y ago

We should certainly look at present conditions, and do what we can to ameliorate them. That "one crazy guy" was rather emblematic of the times -- people institutionalized were subject to horrific treatment and abuses. OP said "look no further" for reasons that the system was dismantled. It wasn't this one "bad apple", the rot had spread far and wide and the system needed to be purged. Unfortunately, it also needed to be rebooted with a different culture rooted in humane care, and that has not happened on the scale that our society needs. But there's the rub. The American way is to scale things up, and industrialize them. I've seen the inside of a few mental health wards when friends of mine have been committed. They can still be pretty awful, and I don't want to see them scaled up. I don't think that is a problem that can be solved with bigger, more industrial, institutions. I look to Geel[1] as an aspirational model, but I'm not sure such a thing is compatible with American culture. To properly address mental health problems, we need a profound cultural shift. Bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, really. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/01/484083305/for-centuries-a-small-town-has-embraced-strangers-with-mental-illness https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/01/4840833...

BizarroLand 4y ago
Teeth puling wasn't the worst thing that happened either. Electroshock therapy, immersion therapy, lobotomies... the list of inhumane experiments trialed on the mentally ill to "rescue" them from their subhuman status is horrifically incalculable.