I this essay I will be talking about deinstitutlization of people with mental illness that took place in the United States in the 1960’s, and also talk about causes of this movement and its consequences. First I will talk about what Deinstitulization means, the definition for it is “Deinstitutionalization was a government policy that moved mental health patients out of state-run "insane asylums" into federally-funded community mental health centers. It began in the 1960s as a way to improve treatment of the mentally ill, while also cutting government budgets”. Now I will talk about the main causes for Deinstitulization in the 1960’s United States. Three societal and scientific changes caused deinstitutionalization in 1960’s …show more content…
Second reason, many people in society at the time believed that we should lock up all the mentally ill in a mental ward or prison, etc. and throw away the key forever. In the 1960’s not many people understood why they were mentally ill. So they judged them as “crazy” people that can’t be helped. The Third reason is Government’s federal funding, such as Medicaid and Medicare, which all the money went towards community mental health centers as opposed to mental hospitals. The reason for is, since most society didn’t care for or opposed mental institutions. There are more reasons why there was Deinstitulization in the United States of America, but the reasons I have written down were the main reasons why it …show more content…
It changed the societies’ view of treatment from "send them away" to integrate and help/care for them into society where possible and from this many people started to understand them and what they go through. I also found that Deinstitulization was not a failure but made it near impossible to initialize an individual, an example of this would be the courts made it near impossible to admit anyone against their will, even if it was for their own safety and welfare and to the people around him in some cases now it’s the same, the reason is the mentally ill have to fall in a certain criteria to be called