Mental Illness

chadwick

look up doctorofmind/dr. mark viner. this dude is a blast. he knows his stuff inside & out, backwards & upside down. he's a genius to my notion. he may have left youtube, i don't know, so look up doctorofmindlegacy. my favorite youtuber in the history of youtubers

chadwick

doctorofmind

https://youtu.be/XQHJ-ZDDh30

brianlux

fife said:

brianlux said:

fife said:

I do believe that unsung did bring up an important point when we are talking with mental health and that is medication.  from talking with some doctors I know, they feel that medication can be good for kids but as a part of the process and not the only part of the process.  one issue that I see at work is that many people will take the medication but will not follow up with the other things that doctor are also saying to them for example, psychotherapy.  

It's a very important issue.   How we talk about it is important as well (meaning I think you did so quite well, fife).

thanks Brian,
also just wanted to say to people out there, ask questions to your doctors about any diagnoses that they have given.  i had to read the DSM-5 Manual and let me tell you its very easy to be misdiagnosed.  make sure that you go to multiple doctors also.  

Yes, DSM-4 or 5 (if you can afford it) is a VERY handy book.

It's also a good idea to look carefully at what meds docs prescribe.  Prozac for me was nearly a death sentence (literally).

oftenreading

brianlux said:

fife said:

brianlux said:

fife said:

I do believe that unsung did bring up an important point when we are talking with mental health and that is medication.  from talking with some doctors I know, they feel that medication can be good for kids but as a part of the process and not the only part of the process.  one issue that I see at work is that many people will take the medication but will not follow up with the other things that doctor are also saying to them for example, psychotherapy.  

It's a very important issue.   How we talk about it is important as well (meaning I think you did so quite well, fife).

thanks Brian,
also just wanted to say to people out there, ask questions to your doctors about any diagnoses that they have given.  i had to read the DSM-5 Manual and let me tell you its very easy to be misdiagnosed.  make sure that you go to multiple doctors also.  

Yes, DSM-4 or 5 (if you can afford it) is a VERY handy book.

It's also a good idea to look carefully at what meds docs prescribe.  Prozac for me was nearly a death sentence (literally).

Prozac may have been "literally a death sentence" for you, Brian, but that doesn't mean it would be for someone else. And the info posted earlier about ADHD medication not being indicated in teenagers is just plain wrong. There is so much misinformation and stigma about treatment of mental illness. I hope we don't add to it here by demonizing medication and the people who choose to take it and find it helpful. 
 

fife

oftenreading said:

brianlux said:

fife said:

brianlux said:

fife said:

I do believe that unsung did bring up an important point when we are talking with mental health and that is medication.  from talking with some doctors I know, they feel that medication can be good for kids but as a part of the process and not the only part of the process.  one issue that I see at work is that many people will take the medication but will not follow up with the other things that doctor are also saying to them for example, psychotherapy.  

It's a very important issue.   How we talk about it is important as well (meaning I think you did so quite well, fife).

thanks Brian,
also just wanted to say to people out there, ask questions to your doctors about any diagnoses that they have given.  i had to read the DSM-5 Manual and let me tell you its very easy to be misdiagnosed.  make sure that you go to multiple doctors also.  

Yes, DSM-4 or 5 (if you can afford it) is a VERY handy book.

It's also a good idea to look carefully at what meds docs prescribe.  Prozac for me was nearly a death sentence (literally).

Prozac may have been "literally a death sentence" for you, Brian, but that doesn't mean it would be for someone else. And the info posted earlier about ADHD medication not being indicated in teenagers is just plain wrong. There is so much misinformation and stigma about treatment of mental illness. I hope we don't add to it here by demonizing medication and the people who choose to take it and find it helpful. 
 

Hey Often, I completely agree with you and I don't believe we are demonizing medication but instead talking about what works/worked for people. 

I once had a client who was dealing with multiple health issue.  he had a crystal meth issue, was also dealing with schizophrenia and had HIV.  I was working with him to try to deal with all these issue.  we would go to one doctor who prescribe 1 type of medication but it didn't work well with all his other medication.  we ended up going to multiple doctors and finally we found a medication that worked for him and now he is doing very well.  now were the other doctors wrong with the medication they gave him?  I would say no as I have seen other clients of mine do very well with that medication. 

fife

PJ_Soul said:

It's been my experience that doctors really just aren't equipped to deal with mental illness properly. Most of them have no idea what medication or other course of action might be adequate. Psychiatrists should be doing it. Unfortunately, they are not reasonably accessible to the majority of people. The government needs to step up here and develop an initiative that increases public access to psychiatrists - actual medical doctors who specialize in mental illness. GPs and therapists are not an adequate support system, clearly. As for therapy and psychologists itself ... yeah, that can really help, and I agree that medication alone is rarely a complete answer. However, the qualifications for such positions are not monitored properly. It is WAY too easy to go see a supposedly qualified therapist or psychologist, and they are perfectly likely to be complete quacks or just plain old shitty at what they do, and there isn't really a good system for maintaining quality or standards in that context. At least doctors are subjected to more rigorous requirements.

Hey PJ, yes you are right that some doctors are not equipped to deal with mental issues but again not knowing your history of dealing with psychologist (if any, and I am not saying that it a rude way) many doctors are very good at it.  I think sadly, that more doctors should get more training around mental health and I think getting mental health support should be a lot easier. 
to be a psychologists you still have to go to school, you still have to register with the college of psychologist.  there are still rigorous requirements but yes it can always be better.

the key is that you have to look around and find one that suits your needs.

unsung

Side question...

Why did Sanitariums/Mental Hospitals more or less become extinct in the US?

fife

unsung said:

Side question...

Why did Sanitariums/Mental Hospitals more or less become extinct in the US?

most mental hospital began to close in the 1980s if I remember correctly.  there was a push for more group home settings at that time as many people felt that the people in the mental hospital were there not because they needed to be there but because people at that time believed that all mental health patients were dangerous.   many mental health worker believed that patients would benefit more from being in a community setting and this worked well until budget cuts began to occur and many of these group homes began to be understaffed and overused. 

oftenreading

unsung said:

Side question...

Why did Sanitariums/Mental Hospitals more or less become extinct in the US?

The correct answer is more than I can type right now, but the short answer includes (1) they aren't more or less extinct; every state had at least one large state psychiatric facility, and usually more than that. Capacity is much reduced, though  (2) the de-institutionalization movement focused on the fact that most people want to be closer to their homes and loved ones, and most people can be successfully treated out of hospital. Unfortunately, as fife noted, the necessary funds did not follow, because of ....(3) administrators saw this as a way to cut costs by cutting hospital beds, instead of re-vamping community services. 

There is a lot of research on what makes for effective community treatment and how to deliver services that maximize psychosocial rehabilitation. Too bad much of the results aren't put into practice. 

rgambs

unsung said:

Side question...

Why did Sanitariums/Mental Hospitals more or less become extinct in the US?

Because they stopped diagnosing women on their periods as "hysterical"?
I kid I kid.

brianlux

oftenreading said:

brianlux said:

fife said:

brianlux said:

fife said:

I do believe that unsung did bring up an important point when we are talking with mental health and that is medication.  from talking with some doctors I know, they feel that medication can be good for kids but as a part of the process and not the only part of the process.  one issue that I see at work is that many people will take the medication but will not follow up with the other things that doctor are also saying to them for example, psychotherapy.  

It's a very important issue.   How we talk about it is important as well (meaning I think you did so quite well, fife).

thanks Brian,
also just wanted to say to people out there, ask questions to your doctors about any diagnoses that they have given.  i had to read the DSM-5 Manual and let me tell you its very easy to be misdiagnosed.  make sure that you go to multiple doctors also.  

Yes, DSM-4 or 5 (if you can afford it) is a VERY handy book.

It's also a good idea to look carefully at what meds docs prescribe.  Prozac for me was nearly a death sentence (literally).

Prozac may have been "literally a death sentence" for you, Brian, but that doesn't mean it would be for someone else. And the info posted earlier about ADHD medication not being indicated in teenagers is just plain wrong. There is so much misinformation and stigma about treatment of mental illness. I hope we don't add to it here by demonizing medication and the people who choose to take it and find it helpful. 
 

Sorry, often, I didn't mean to imply Prozac is a "bad" drug, but it was bad for me.  What I'm saying is that I think it's important to find medication that works your you.  We are all different and we all respond to medication differently.  I'm also very much (this is just me again) in favor of getting off medications as soon as possible if you can. After spending a week in a hospital getting clean from my Xanax addiction and getting off Prozac and on Serzone, I stayed off Xanax and kept taking Serzone for a few years.  Once I was back on track, I eased off the Serzone (it's now taken off the market in the U.S. anyway) I decided to try staying off meds.  I take an herb tincture made by a local herbalist as well as vitamins and medicate with music.  Most of the time I do fairly well.  When the anxiety kicks in, I hang on and survive. 

oftenreading

rgambs said:

unsung said:

Side question...

Why did Sanitariums/Mental Hospitals more or less become extinct in the US?

Because they stopped diagnosing women on their periods as "hysterical"?
I kid I kid.

That's part of what I didn't get in to  

PJ_Soul

fife said:

PJ_Soul said:

It's been my experience that doctors really just aren't equipped to deal with mental illness properly. Most of them have no idea what medication or other course of action might be adequate. Psychiatrists should be doing it. Unfortunately, they are not reasonably accessible to the majority of people. The government needs to step up here and develop an initiative that increases public access to psychiatrists - actual medical doctors who specialize in mental illness. GPs and therapists are not an adequate support system, clearly. As for therapy and psychologists itself ... yeah, that can really help, and I agree that medication alone is rarely a complete answer. However, the qualifications for such positions are not monitored properly. It is WAY too easy to go see a supposedly qualified therapist or psychologist, and they are perfectly likely to be complete quacks or just plain old shitty at what they do, and there isn't really a good system for maintaining quality or standards in that context. At least doctors are subjected to more rigorous requirements.

Hey PJ, yes you are right that some doctors are not equipped to deal with mental issues but again not knowing your history of dealing with psychologist (if any, and I am not saying that it a rude way) many doctors are very good at it.  I think sadly, that more doctors should get more training around mental health and I think getting mental health support should be a lot easier. 
to be a psychologists you still have to go to school, you still have to register with the college of psychologist.  there are still rigorous requirements but yes it can always be better.

the key is that you have to look around and find one that suits your needs.

Oh, I didn't mean to say that all doctors' therapists, and psychologists suck, lol. Just that too many of them do (some are even anti-med warriors, no matter what the needs of the patients really are - they will actually specifically advise people not to escalate to psychiatry because they see it as a threat to their own profession), and that access to psychiatrists, which can be a very important distinction for those who require help from meds as well as counselling, is very poor. That said, I don't think everyone with mental illness needs to see a psychiatrist or consider meds. As for GPs... I mean, most of them have the least training about mental illness and are very often in the dark when it comes to treating mental illness - sometimes they just try the anti-depressants or anti-anxiety meds that they happen to have a good supply of samples of - yet they are the first ones most people go to, and are unfortunately unable to pass the patients up the mental health care chain because the people aren't covered to see anyone else anyhow. So then what? GPs obviously aren't able to act as therapist or counsellors or psychiatrists, so they take the route they are most suited to: medications.

unsung

oftenreading said:

unsung said:

Side question...

Why did Sanitariums/Mental Hospitals more or less become extinct in the US?

The correct answer is more than I can type right now, but the short answer includes (1) they aren't more or less extinct; every state had at least one large state psychiatric facility, and usually more than that. Capacity is much reduced, though  (2) the de-institutionalization movement focused on the fact that most people want to be closer to their homes and loved ones, and most people can be successfully treated out of hospital. Unfortunately, as fife noted, the necessary funds did not follow, because of ....(3) administrators saw this as a way to cut costs by cutting hospital beds, instead of re-vamping community services. 

There is a lot of research on what makes for effective community treatment and how to deliver services that maximize psychosocial rehabilitation. Too bad much of the results aren't put into practice. 

I asked because there are two fairly close to me that are abandoned, and apparently they are popular with the urban explorer crowd.  

I thought they went away because of political correctness.

PJ_Soul

unsung said:

oftenreading said:

unsung said:

Side question...

Why did Sanitariums/Mental Hospitals more or less become extinct in the US?

The correct answer is more than I can type right now, but the short answer includes (1) they aren't more or less extinct; every state had at least one large state psychiatric facility, and usually more than that. Capacity is much reduced, though  (2) the de-institutionalization movement focused on the fact that most people want to be closer to their homes and loved ones, and most people can be successfully treated out of hospital. Unfortunately, as fife noted, the necessary funds did not follow, because of ....(3) administrators saw this as a way to cut costs by cutting hospital beds, instead of re-vamping community services. 

There is a lot of research on what makes for effective community treatment and how to deliver services that maximize psychosocial rehabilitation. Too bad much of the results aren't put into practice. 

I asked because there are two fairly close to me that are abandoned, and apparently they are popular with the urban explorer crowd.  

I thought they went away because of political correctness.

No, unless they were rife with abuses or were too dilapidated to use (which would also indicate lack of funding), they almost certainly closed because of lack of funding. It's been happening all over North America. I live near one like that too, although there has been enough outcry since it closed that the government is now re-funding it so that it can open again, since closing it made clear just how necessary it really was.

unsung

Yeah, I question if people are really getting the proper help nowadays.

brianlux

unsung said:

oftenreading said:

unsung said:

Side question...

Why did Sanitariums/Mental Hospitals more or less become extinct in the US?

The correct answer is more than I can type right now, but the short answer includes (1) they aren't more or less extinct; every state had at least one large state psychiatric facility, and usually more than that. Capacity is much reduced, though  (2) the de-institutionalization movement focused on the fact that most people want to be closer to their homes and loved ones, and most people can be successfully treated out of hospital. Unfortunately, as fife noted, the necessary funds did not follow, because of ....(3) administrators saw this as a way to cut costs by cutting hospital beds, instead of re-vamping community services. 

There is a lot of research on what makes for effective community treatment and how to deliver services that maximize psychosocial rehabilitation. Too bad much of the results aren't put into practice. 

I asked because there are two fairly close to me that are abandoned, and apparently they are popular with the urban explorer crowd.  

I thought they went away because of political correctness.

Here in California a number of mental health institutions were closed when Ronald Reagan was governor.  He shut them down and created a situation where the number of homeless rose dramatically.  It's a shameful legacy.

jeffbr

brianlux said:

unsung said:

oftenreading said:

unsung said:

Side question...

Why did Sanitariums/Mental Hospitals more or less become extinct in the US?

The correct answer is more than I can type right now, but the short answer includes (1) they aren't more or less extinct; every state had at least one large state psychiatric facility, and usually more than that. Capacity is much reduced, though  (2) the de-institutionalization movement focused on the fact that most people want to be closer to their homes and loved ones, and most people can be successfully treated out of hospital. Unfortunately, as fife noted, the necessary funds did not follow, because of ....(3) administrators saw this as a way to cut costs by cutting hospital beds, instead of re-vamping community services. 

There is a lot of research on what makes for effective community treatment and how to deliver services that maximize psychosocial rehabilitation. Too bad much of the results aren't put into practice. 

I asked because there are two fairly close to me that are abandoned, and apparently they are popular with the urban explorer crowd.  

I thought they went away because of political correctness.

Here in California a number of mental health institutions were closed when Ronald Reagan was governor.  He shut them down and created a situation where the number of homeless rose dramatically.  It's a shameful legacy.

Yes, but why did he shut them down? If you recall, the ACLU in the 70's fought many battles against involuntary commitment, and their work culminated with the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act of 1980.  There were a number of factors, from the involuntary nature of why they were there, to the deplorable conditions of some of these state institutions. It wasn't just California, either. New York, and Florida had cases which altered the way in which people were committed. Many were homeless because they couldn't be kept against their wills, but also wouldn't seek help for themselves. 

I just found this short little blurb about the ACLU's fight on their site:

ACLU HISTORY: MENTAL INSTITUTIONS

"The ACLU's most important Supreme Court case involving the rights of people with mental illness was filed on behalf of Kenneth Donaldson, who had been involuntarily confined in a Florida State Hospital for 15 years. He was not dangerous and had received no medical treatment. In a landmark decision for mental health law in 1975, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that states cannot confine a non-dangerous individual who can survive on his own, or with help from family and friends."

fife

unsung said:

Yeah, I question if people are really getting the proper help nowadays.

I would say that most people are getting help but there are many things that have to be corrected which have been mentioned already.  ie, more funding for community workers, more funding for a variety of different type of housing such as supportive housing, wait time for help, cost of getting help.

PJ_Soul

fife said:

unsung said:

Yeah, I question if people are really getting the proper help nowadays.

I would say that most people are getting help but there are many things that have to be corrected which have been mentioned already.  ie, more funding for community workers, more funding for a variety of different type of housing such as supportive housing, wait time for help, cost of getting help.

Really? I would say that most people are not getting help. Yes, the severely mentally ill people are mostly getting help I think, but the majority of mentally ill people are not severe (i.e. psychosis, schizophrenia, etc). The majority of those with a mental illness are, I think, probably not getting help due to the stigma still very much attached to the non-severe types of mental illness, such as anxiety and depression, OCD disorders, PTSD, etc. Even in a very open-minded environment like the one I work in, I can think of 5 people I know personally just off the top of my head who are not getting any help for their more "mild" mental illnesses because they are either ashamed or in denial, thinking they can manage it on their own... maybe they can, and maybe they can't.