We Shut Down State Mental Hospitals. Some Want to Bring Them Back.
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- čas přidán 11. 07. 2024
- Is "mental illness" a fraudulent concept for locking up social deviants? Or does forced treatment free the ill "from the Bastille of their psychosis?"
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On January 3, 1999, Andrew Goldstein wandered onto a New York City subway platform and shoved a stranger named Kendra Webdale into the path of an oncoming train. As the story made national news, reporters dug into Goldstein's past and found that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and had a history of violent episodes. He had been in and out of psychiatric facilities, but his caretakers had repeatedly released him back onto the streets against their better judgment because of a shortage of available beds.
The murder of Kendra Webdale brought attention to Americans with severe mental health problems and inadequate treatment, a social problem that 20 years later is still ongoing. Prisons and jails are filled with inmates who exhibit symptoms of mental illness. So do many of the homeless people crowding the streets of cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. Violent episodes, like the Webdale murder and some recent mass shootings, have brought renewed calls to entrust the state with more authority to force psychiatric care on patients against their will.
This story looks at the history of mental illness, institutionalization, and the role of coercion in psychiatry. It features an array of voices and viewpoints, including Linda Mayo, the mother of twin daughers with severe psychiatric diagnoses, who advocates for court-ordered psychiatric treatment; Richard Krzyzanowski, a patients' rights advocate who fights against coercive treatment laws; DJ Jaffe, the founder of Mental Illness Policy Org., who argues that the state should make it much easier to commit mental patients; the late Thomas Szasz, a controversial libertarian psychiatrist who fought compulsory treatment and questioned the very existence of mental illness; and Scott Zeller, a psychiatrist who's developed a new model that he hopes will reduce coercion in the system. (Disclosure: Zeller has in the past donated to Reason Foundation, the 501c3 that publishes Reason.)
Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Camera by Weissmueller, Jim Epstein, Meredith Bragg, and Alexis Garcia.
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That Awkward moment when you realize that most of the homeless people you see today were the mental hospital patients of yesteryear.
Group homes work for people who are mentally ill but are not violent and can follow rules. I live in one. But I am not a danger to my community.
@@daniellion5291 And that’s how it should be. It’s like in the 1960s the pendulum was swung all the way over to one way, and now it’s swung all the way over to the other direction.
Lopside: the same happened with ex-slaves after the "Civil War."
The problem is that hospitals exceeded their Constitutional limitations, and they are currently engaged civil rights abuses worse than the KKK; and the government is HELPING them.
Lopside: and most of the criminals you see today, were the SLAVES of yesteryear.
@Diana Laura In the 1960's they could hospitalize anyone for any reason; so before this a people were just locked up by punitive psychiatry, on a whim, as a form of Forced Disappearance. . Then the Supreme Court ruled in 1979 under _Addington v. Texas,_ that a person must be dangerous to themselves or others by clear and convincing evidence. But even this is abused in order to lock up people who have committed no crime, in order to punish them for having disabilities; or just for being poor, even by choice. It's just a new form of Inquisition and Big Brother.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_disappearance
Sounds like the pendulum was too far one way and has now swung too far the other way.
That's the American way.
Exactly. “One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest,” was written in the early 1960s, and was based on mental health hospitals of the time. We should NOT return to that, but that doesn’t mean closing mental health hospitals.
@@HVACSoldier Indeed - pretty much a blatant real-world example of throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Samuel Muller: because of the massive Constitutional violations committed by these hospitals, tantamount to medieval barbarism. I'm an attorney for this sort of abuse, and it's nothing less than a modern Inquisition.
@@SovereignStatesman There were definitely issues with them. But I don't think that just shutting them all down was a great solution either.
Worked in a State Hospital for 6 years. Mental illness exists. The problem with the psychotropic medication is not only the side effects but like everyone else when they feel better they stop taking meds & decompensate. This usually happens after they were discharged from hospital.
The largest mental health facility in the US is the LA COUNTY Jail.
True
that is why some people can never be released into the public because they wont stay compliant with their medicine regimes, for those that can support them outside the mental hospital.
@@kercchan3307 True
The issue I see it after my 20 years in Community Mental Health is the too few dollars followed clients into the community when beds we minimized at the hospitals. Here in Pierce County WA where I live there are fewer community beds in group homes now that when I began working in 1993. How can people recover when the most basic needs cant get met due to homelessness?
@@nickwarrior5 That's what a LOT of schizophrenics say Nick. :)
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions"
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
Well, so are most roads
What do you do then Human history has always looked for a way to deal with this problem and every time it fails
False. What he said is that the road to hell is paved with the skulls of dead prelates.
Sounds like socialism
@Jason Rasmussen the left?? You need to check the dictionary, you have it backwards
They need to rebuild large mental hospitals and put the mentally ill who would otherwise be homeless in them. Plain and simple. Letting the severely mentally ill wander the streets is dangerous and just downright wrong
So, you want to lock them up forever? Please, let them live in freedom, don't be a drama queen.
They abuse them there and they drug them up there they put them in restrains there they lose all their rights
I get what you are trying to say but reality is and I say this with experience all mental institutions do is abuse patients and drug patients up and put patients in restrains they take away peoples rights
So it's that simple huh...
BuT wHoS gOnNa PaY fOr tHaT?
I worked at a food bank for a while and can't even count how many people I met who were mentally ill and needed us for every meal. It was the most heartbreaking experience of my life having a 5 year old explain to me what her incredibly ill 40 year old mother needed.
@BigErn_Mccraken A lot of these people weren't loved. Drug addicted parents, sexual abuse, that sort of shit.
@BigErn_Mccraken , great story.
That's beyond heartbreaking.
The so called hospitals dont cure shit its torture...these peoples brains are fucked with drugs
@BigErn_Mccraken Empathy is Bad and harmful.
www.theatlantic.com/video/index/474588/why-empathy-is-a-bad-thing/
Thomas Wictor is a serious advocate of restoring federally operated mental hospitals. He has argued that the real reason we have a homeless crisis is that we closed the mental hospitals down decades ago.
They can be rebuilt and made better and less institutional than the ones in the past.
Not all of people on the street have mental health
100% agree
BRING THE HOSPITALS. SHIP EM THERE. NOW
Mental illness is real and there should be hospitals but the patients should be treated as people instead of treating them as dangerous criminals
However, mental illness is unacceptable to impose. And it is unacceptable to “treat” a person of that which he does not want to be treated for.
Open them back up and keep them calm don’t experiment on them
If you read psychology publications nowadays, the utter denial of the existence of a mental illness problem in our society is very disturbing. These "experts" are really doing a disservice to our society.
You aren’t an expert - you probably don’t even have a college degree. Hush
Whats your classification mental illness to you ? Some people say people who “talk to God” can be mentally I’ll and others write books and make them saints ..
You can bring them back without the constant abuse... l think they are needed
They won't bring it back without adding abuse.
This is some excellent and objective journalism from Reason. Good job, awesome video!
Yeah, this is my favourite kind of Reason video.
Nice to see something other than a John stossel oversimplification from them. I'd much rather see a video that might actually convince someone who isn't libertarian to begin with. Some of these videos are so one sided I can't share them with others, no matter how much i agree.
Zach Weissmueller's videos are usually pretty good.
One Two Three stossel makes good points even if his answers aren’t so great
This is a tough one
With proper legal protections, we need to have a place to do extended treatment of the most severely mentally ill. Szasz was right in 1960 and 1970. We weren't treating people, just warehousing them. We threw out the baby with bathwater. We can treat people with severe mental illness much better now than in 1970, especially with behavioral therapy combined with appropriate medications. Leaving people with no ability to care for themselves has proven to be far worse than reasonable hospitalization.
What's bad right now is "unwanted" persons frequently end up in skilled nursing units/assisted living centers. Then you've got a potentially strong unstable 35 year old man (as an example) who you can't legally restrain (although they try to keep them on ativan) versus a bunch of 21 year old CNAs and 45 year old LPNs/RNs that are almost all women. It's a clusterfuck and it needs fixed.
The bigger picture is what is causing this?
You don't want asylums. These were Hitler's playing grounds. In fact the most extreme in mental illness. Are those thrown on the streets without the help that they deserve
Even those who came from the WEALTHIEST families. Have been found on the streets.
Warehousing is the nursing home system. Where I worked we did care for them. Especially the elderly patients, the patient to staff ratio was much better than nursing homes: 2 attendants to 12 patients, LPN to 24 patients and an RN to 48 patients.
The facility I worked at had a working farm. The vast majority of the patients grew up on farms. They grew their own food, raised livestock and tended an apple orchard. New farming techniques were tried there and farmers came from miles to learn these techniques.
Patient Rights Advocates put a stop to that, demanding patients be paid for their work. The farm was closed and patients sat on their wards, except to go outside for a few hours in the morning and afternoon.
@@luciusvorenus9445 it's this breakdown of family. More parents are being sent to nursing homes at earlier ages because kids have moved away. The emotional effects of indifference has a significant impact on all humans.
Mental Health is also a title used to debilitate a person forever. They will use you as a lab animal (mk ultra), different drugs, or just like before. You can declare someone is crazy and have them taken against their will.
And what about damages?
If a child is subjected to unrelenting abuse. Should they be instutionalized on top.
I have PTSD. ITS AN INJURY. BUT SEEN AS A DANGER. A PTSD FROM PSYCOLOGICAL WARFARE USED BY LAWYERS.TO PROTECT A SERIOUS ABUSER WHO HAS A DEEPER PSYCOPATHY AN ACTED NORMAL IN THE GENERAL POPULATION. BUT A TERRORIST TO ANYONE WHO WAS ON HIS BAD SIDE.
@@luciusvorenus9445 i could only stand a few years in healthcare, everyone i turned to said it was much better in the past. I'm fairly young so i feel like i missed out.
Yes, we need these institutions back yesterday.
What a complicated issue...really great video excellent in showing all sides
Here's another side. czcams.com/video/EOeRSL0crcg/video.html
Including that quack Jaffee, who wants INQUISITIONS where shrinks become Inquisitors.
@@SovereignStatesman he's right about delusions not being freedom of expression though.
I had a panic attack didn't see a doctor I saw security guards it's stupid the way they doe things 😠 . 16 All Scripture is inspired of God+ and beneficial for teaching,+ for reproving, for setting things straight,+ for disciplining in righteousness,+ 17
This is 2024 we don't just want them back we need them at this point
The problem is who decides if you are crazy or not
The crazy people that run our system! That's why i'm against it!
A doctor
@@qjtvaddict A Witch Doctor most likely..
The crazy ones are the ones that is harming others, shooting others with reason or no reason.
@@tutsecret499 I have seen people committed that did NONE of those things Just dared to say "this is bullshite"
The people you listed could easily be jailed for their ACTUAL offenses
Bring them back already...
Yes, I believe that’s why we have so many homeless today. Open them back up I would be happy to pay tax dollars
The mental health industry is a racket
I spent 5 days in a psych hospital 4 years ago. You see a psychiatrist for 15 minutes/day and spend the rest of the time sleeping or wandering the hallways. I got far better care as an outpatient. Plus, it cost as much as a used car.
i know what you mean. the psychiatrist is really just assessing if your meds are working though. they will be briefed on you by the auxiliary staff before they see you. i can see why that seems frustrating but the rest of the time there should be opportunities for you to attend group and individual therapy and work on your "coping skills" or whatev.
Well I understand, but in my family we have someone that make up that he is hunted by the mafia. Refuse to accept anything else and starts arguments and scream out of his lungs that everyone is going to be murdered. Heck he gave me a lot of verbal abuse as he claimed I caused hackers to hack his computer and disrupt the TV reception. But fact was that it was just a storm outside at the time and the TV reception was bad because of it. His computer was not hacked as he just didn't understand that you can't push a WiFi connection through 5 walls and the main fuse box without serious signal loss.
We are not psychiatrist, we are not equipped to handle someone like him when he gets into a psychosis and refuse to listen. Yet we can't force him to get treatment or get him away from us. I was once told by the police that they can't help me get him to calm down and get him to the hospital and instead think that I should take a car and drive him to the emergency myself. But the problem is that he is a animal that think he is about to die, he will not go willingly. If that should be possible I have to beat him unconscious and then I can take him to the hospital so I can drive the car to the emergency without having to fight in the car.
Capit: Hospitals provided a secure environment, medication and a modicum of other activities/therapy for patients who are in greatest danger. It typically takes years of mental illness before people get treatment or hospitalization. Likewise, it takes TIME for meds to work and for support to stabilize the seriously ill. Hospitals can't work miracles in 72 hours or 5 days. Try to view your hospital stay in the more favorable light.
You clearly aren’t in need of long term inpatient care then. Other people are.
@@KB4QAA Yeah, the secure environment is provided for everyone else. YOU are stuck in there with people who can lash out at any moment.
Mental health abuse is wrong as well
Reagan posed as a solution and created a problem.
It would fundamentally change my state almost over night. But it would never happen, because my state is a socialist hellscape.
Whoever liked is an idiot
I take it you live in California?
@@quronmccovery881 You're the only idiot here
@@9mmshort254 It was dumb comment, but I don't really feel the same anymore so it doesn't matter. Still think OP's is misinformed.
@@quronmccovery881 how is op misinformed lol
I feel this is a perfect example of a problem of balance faced by Libertarian thought. There is no clear black and white way to judge when a person should have their physical freedom reduced for their own good, and to what extent should the state be involved.
*@lambo200530* is this problem of balance avoided in non-libertarian thought? It’s not so clear.
The question is identical to incarceration in general. Homelessness is a problem for safety and public liberty, especially when psychiatric problems are routinely blamed for poverty and weaponized to increase government involvement and remove everyone's liberty.
In libertarian thought, one should only be limited after they’ve aggressed against another. Crimes require a victim. That being said, most of the mentally ill do not push people off subway platforms as a first offense. There’s a building process starting from lesser offenses. However, family and friends don’t bring any attention during these initial outbursts and leave it for the court system to do anything. But by the time it reaches them someone else is injured or murdered
only if you think people can't have nuance to thought. If you think all libertarians think the same thing you're wrong.
This is one of the few things where there is not a clear or correct libertarian answer. Most things are pretty straightforward.
They would have to be Mental Health "Communities", not Asylums.
jā carter call it what you want. So long as we get them of the sreets.
Problem solved... send them to LA.
Our prisons aren't made to be psychiatric hospitals, there is definitely a need for state hospitals.
I broke my back 8 years ago and left with chronic back nerve pain. I't almost drove me insane and I went through serious bouts of depression and anxiety. I'm stuck in Cali work comp system having been hurt on the job. The insurance has done everything possible to deny treatment. I can't even get basic medications for pain. I fought for 6 years to get mental help and counseling...I was denied for 5years straight no matter how many doctors requested it. Year 6 I finally got approved for cbt but severe damage was already done in my life and relationships destroyed. I was given 6 sessions but because the progress wasn't good enough work comp cut further treatment.....I'm still fighting work comp,fighting ssi disability and still unable to get proper mental health care....the real messed up part is if I flipped my lid everyone would blame me and I'd look like a bad person though Ive been reaching for help forever......I've herd so many other stories of people reaching out for help and being turned away and it makes my heart break. I've never meet a single person that wanted to lose their mind....
Pretend you’re homeless you’ll get everything you need…seriously
Exactly. A decent hospital placement would have provided you dignity and help. Instead you were left to crawl around the system here, which is better than most, depending on volunteers as your money and relationships slipped away. So sorry!
Every year I lose my mind thanks too legal meds so thank your local government their policy not mine .Forced compliance is real.
You are probably white and Californias government hates working whites.
This is how the Joker was created.
I disagreed that the responsible thing to do is let someone live in a tent downtown. They’re not just living in a tent, they’re defecating on the sidewalks, self medicating with street drugs and littering neighborhoods with syringes, and often they’re involved in human trafficking on one side or the other. How is that compassionate or morally justifiable?
As a psychiatrist, and a libertarian I really enjoyed this video. I thought it was going to be a hit piece on my profession. Glad to see it was objective journalism. 👍
Reason is one of the last bastions of that. They're willing to piss off both sides of the aisle.
You’re not a damn psychiatrist you just a want to be
@@edward2364 Psychiatry is not a science.
@@edward2364 Some times the want to be's are better than the actual Pro's who will Treat and Abuse the so called Patient.
@@jimmyjimmy1601 lol. whatever.
We need a basic competency test before the state should be allowed to take control of another's life. In the end, each tax dollar can be spent just once.
I tried helping an old homeless woman for several years. She had a number of complex delusions and was often upset. She lived in the woods for a long time, usually along the Appalachian Trail. She had a PO Box and I helped her get a photo ID then someone else helped her get set up on Social Security. That allowed her to start staying in extended stay hotels for the colder months. She couldn’t stay in one place for long because she thought she was being poisoned through the air ventilation.
On the one hand, she had been arrested for living in the AT shelters and had a short stint in a local mental hospital. That had been a mostly negative experience for her and she was scared of going back. She preferred being outdoors away from people (tho sometimes she told me she hated the woods). On the other hand, she could not actually take care of herself and depended on the kindness/pity of strangers. She tended to burn out anyone who tried to stabilize her life. I eventually couldn’t deal with her anymore and didn’t think I was helping, just enabling.
Whether she liked it or not, she should be confined and medicated. I think she could find some level of sanity if she had a hospital with an outdoor area for her to spend part of her day and some socialization. But she would not do this willingly. I think the state hospitals were shut down fundamentally to save money. But these people cost us money anyways.
Nathan Boyle what about assisted suicide to end their suffering
@@qjtvaddict
Ok edgelord
@@qjtvaddict That sounds like you're supporting murder, unless they clearly communicate want to be killed and can understand what that means entirely
And who's going to secure her Constitutional rights? Will she get legal representation in the hospital, like she would in prison? Or is she just at the mercy of self-righteous quacks, who have a HISTORY of torture and inhumane experimentation in the name of "treatment," which circumvents the 8th Amendment protection against Cruel and Unusual Punishment? You clearly haven't thought this through very well... like ALL disability hate-criminals, you just want them out of YOUR sight; like the kid in Schindler's List, screaming "GOODBYE JEW!"
If hospitals worked, she'd have been cured the FIRST time; clearly she was TRAUMATIZED.
@@qjtvaddict Sorry, I’m only just now seeing your reply to my comment. The problem with assisted suicide is it’s negative influence on medical progress. The reason we have developed much of our medical knowledge and treatments is to reduce suffering. But if the suffering people are just killed off we would lose a major incentive to R&D better medical treatments.
Some ppl can’t live independently
Some of them are being held back.
The reason they were closed due to Inhuman torture and Cruelty!
No that's not it. I worked at a Psych Hospital for over 9 years. It's more than that. God Bless.
Mental Institutions Should Have Never Been Shut, I am from NJ, When The State' shut down Graystone mental hospital, Just Out Side Morristown' then located in Plains' It was the biggest mistake ever made, rather than rebuilding the solid Granite Structures, they all saw dollar signs for the sale of huge Granite stone Blocks. So what happened to all the mentally Ill, many ended up in prison, some left the state, and others committed suicide, and still many are real predators and sexual deviants' living within our society, Cities, And Communities. Why are there so many, rapists, child molesters, and dangerous people? Including them that commit Crimes Involving Murder and or Gun Violence, resulting in the deaths of average citizens.
Very well put together. Showing all credible sides of an argument makes everyone smarter
When I did my inpatient mental health rotation at Warm Springs State Mental Hospital in the mid 1970s, I used to spend time reading patient's charts. So many were variations of the same story: "The patient's insanity began in 1957 when he was found wandering the streets talking to himself, incoherent, and unable to show a means to support himself." While the patients were in a somewhat run-down state institution, they had a roof over their heads, were warm, clean, had three meals per day and therapy. I now see these same people on the streets, except they are so much worse off. This doesn't seem like progress.
Was it free or did they pay?
@@riseoverhere3054 When you are involuntarily admitted to a government-run facility (this was the Montana State Mental Hospital), the government has an absolute duty of care. At that time, patients were not charged for their care. In recent years many states have allowed for prisoners to be charged for room and board while incarcerated. I don't know if this extends to state-run mental health facilities, but I doubt it.
In the 1980s, there was a huge movement to close or downsize state-run mental health hospitals, because they were "inhumane." The care of the patients was supposed to be shifted to local community mental health services. More often, they were simply shown the door, or given a one-way bus ticket to the location where they entered the system.
@@DavidKutzler thank you. It’s bad thing that they closed these mental institutions down and not all of them were abusive maybe a small percentage like I don’t know maybe I want to say 5%. Regan should have closed down all prisons instead. Some of the nurses at the mental institutions would only abuse the patients if the patients abused them first. The nurses wouldn’t abuse patients randomly. Those nurses did not have thick skin back in those days.
I absolutely agree, but as people we have to actively make an effort to not only consider the seen (such as the people on street) but also the unseen (such as the people who now live free and good lives). Reverting back after only considering one side of the story would be a mistake. That said I don't know much about the topic, but I do know that the harder to spot effects of any given action are way too often overlooked.
In orange county Ca the cops wont hesitate to 51/50 a person demonstrating signs of mental disorder. They throw people with schizophrenia, depression, suicidal thoughts into small 72hr observation clinics.
The docs just want to sedate the problem and prescribe missing med regimens.
Its disheartening to visit somone in a place like that.
Good old orange curtain they don’t mess around!
People talk like mental institutions are a thing in the past. They’re not. There’s countless footage of the abuse that takes place in these locked wards. There’s leaked proof mass chains commit financial fraud, and lock up people they know don’t meet criteria for commitment.
Nope! sorry! It's true some of these people need to be forcefully committed against their will but I'm sorry I don't trust the state to have that power.
or they can be homeless and eventually prisoned
To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin it is better that 100 people that should be institutionalized go free than one innocent person be institutionalized wrongly
@@justintrefney1083 what I'm saying this whole thing is one philosopical mind fucker
@@bradenross4182 It is just fucked up. I kind of accept the status quo. Let this be largely a city problem that city motherfuckers have no choice but to live with for being such douchebags.
Brutus Tan the solution is the privatization of all public property. Private property owners will be able to remove them from their property. They will have no where to go except to their families or institutions. Both their families and institutions can mandate treatment if the individual remain on their property.
In my hitchhiking/backpacking days I was shocked by how much of homelessness is entirely severe, and probably irreversible, mental illness. I'd guess 75% of it from my experience. Mental illness should be dealt with in open, public psychiatric trials.
Most of the people I met were no danger to society, directly, but mental illness is a problem that harms society indirectly, and not abstractly. The mentally ill are constantly used as pawns by politicians.There are mentally ill people who are no more mentally capable than children. Liberty doesn't start at an age, it starts when you can take responsibility for your actions, and ends when you can't. Society has every right to decide how to handle people who require special care from society.
👽 So none of the homeless people you met where there because of not being able to pay the outrageous cost of housing in this country? Yeah Right!
Most homeless are people who are drug and alcohol addicts... After years of abusing these things, they are going to have mental illness. No one wants to talk about how much drug abuse causes all these mental problems. Because it's not politically correct to say so...
👽@@Deborahtunes So the OUTRAGEOUS cost of housing in this damn country has absolutely nothing to do with it riiiiiiiight?!
@@Hardin9 ~ I didn't say that. But I've seen from experience, that drug and alcohol addictions play a big part of the homeless issue. California isn't the only state with a homeless problem. It's all over the country. And not all of those states have such high taxes... To blame all of it on that is ignoring that many of them cause their own predicament by their own poor choices. I have also known people to be homeless because of their gambling problems.
@@Hardin9 You don't become homeless because you can't pay rent. I've never heard of that ever happening. You become homeless because none of the people you have met in your entire life are willing to let you crash on their couch. Everyone knows someone who will let you sleep on their floor. I even heard of complete strangers letting people sleep on their floor if they believe the story of their hardship is true.
You become homeless when your mental health is so unstable, or you are so heavily addicted to substances (usually alcohol at first) that no one who knows you trusts you in their home. That's the reality of homelessness that no one talks about.
I'm not talking about the kids hopping trains for fun that migrate to California where you can camp outside all year for free without ever getting a job. I know plenty of people who've done that for a year or two...
And I'll add, that no one gets hopelessly addicted to substances on purpose. Once you fall down that spiral, the odds of pulling yourself up are close to zero, no matter who's fault it is.
I think the facts speak for themselves...When they closed Mental Institutions, the amount of crime, homelessness and vandalism skyrocketed! We need to bring back Mental Institutions and ensure that they have the best interests of the mentally ill at heart!!!
there was ALSO a war on drugs that was declared and in many cities with high homelessness rates, the cost of housing have skyrocketed due to various local government regulations decreasing the supply of housing and thus making housing costs unaffordable
Speaking as one who has been in a MH hospital……have You been sent to one? Especially a state hospital? We need friends and support. Hospitals? F those. Been there done that. CPTSD from all that. Never again.
@@trulygodsgracemost mentally ill homeless types just don’t want to follow rules. Is that why you say “f that”? Making your bed and following a schedule is a problem for you? Much safer for mentally ill to be cared for 100% of the time. Clean beds, housing, food, medication!
its sickenning how many mentally ill people who never needed psych meds but cant afford to live in society on ssi alone are forced to go to psych hospitals adn take danerous psych meds they never needed inorder to get housing
Legalize drugs. Marijuana has been helping many vets avoid SSRIs and their terrible side effects in dealing with depression. It has also allowed for better pain management without risking opiate addiction.
MDMA has been shown to be very effective in improving results of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for those with PTSD.
Testosterone replacement therapy has started to gain ground for treating traumatic brain injury, the symptoms of which are often misdiagnosed and then mismedicated as PTSD.
Psilocybin and LSD are showing promise as a replacement for SSRIs for depression. One trip with a guide has results that last for months or longer. They also have almost no negative side effects.
Give psychiatry the tools it needs to help people.
weed can't solve everything, bud
@@bradenross4182 where did I claim that it could? Do you have a counter claim? Or were you just looking for an opportunity to throw out a pun?
@ it's a reflection
@@bradenross4182 I don't have a mirror handy. Don't smoke weed either.
Give the tools to the people directly. Don't make them go through a psychiatrist.
This is some 1984 shit.
I believe someone should be locked involuntarily (either in hospital or jail or whatever) ONLY if they are danger to others. Never else.
Some sentences in this video are extremely dangerous.
Asylums and prisons are very expensive. People on the streets are many times handled with a bus ticket. Take a ride west on the bus or go to jail.
Bring back the insane asylums in 2022
Build the hospitals! Clean up our streets!
Theron Sax you'll be in there as well for being considered a sociopath.
@Jason Rasmussen Libertarianism can consume a person's thinking like a cult. This problem needs a viable solution and "charity" sounds like an ideological chant to me. I hear it a lot, I don't see it working.
@Jason Rasmussen Did you even watch the video? The video is about mental Illness not homelessness.
It's in the title.
This debate can go all the way from homelessness, transgenderism to mass shooters. It's making me crazy thinking about it.
And political dissenters. There's no limit to the abuse of psychiatry.
@@SovereignStatesman and racists too.
@@SovereignStatesman be careful with that blanket statement. It turns into speech or thought you simply don't like. Liberalism is a mental disorder.
@@crescentprincekronos2518 far right conservatism is a mental illness too. Just stay in the centre.
@@crescentprincekronos2518 I guess the founding fathers were complete psychos
I was involuntarily committed for a year. It saved my life.
I hope you're doing well in life
God bless you.
Same here. It not only saved my life but the lives of at least two other people. I was going to do a terrible thing. I was not in my right mind. Now I have the perspective to see that. The brain can get sick just like any other organ.
i was involuntarily committed for a few weeks and made everything way worse, knowing I shouldnt be there
AutismHazSpoken Not gonna give specifics. Holy jeezus your name is funny.
The extreme scrutiny required for a system to remove or rescind personal sovereignty almost precludes both an ethical and efficacious implementation of such a system. The will and the means are simply not enough. Literally a qualified dedicated army is required to tackle the problem and society as a whole couldn't care less. Even though there are many who do care it is simply not enough to just "care" about the issue !
Not In My Back Yard is the level of care most people have about the issue.
A preclusion to the establishment of order based upon a perceived likelihood that a disservice will be done to a distinct minority of individuals is the underlying bias upon which Marxism is founded and is antithetical to the ethos of Libertarianism as the tyranny of unchecked individual liberty denudes a society of the ability to regulate the ability to own property.
But our armies are securing americas business interests elsewhere.
"if they want to live in a tent in the downtown and not follow the societal norms you should let them" NO YOU SHOULD NOT!!! If they don't want to participate in the society as a normal humans - they can go take a hike - literally!!! They can live in a tent if they choose so but in the woods!!!
I agree, but sadly most states have strict camping laws... even outside the city.
Exactlty. Tent city has costed us quantifiable dollar amount. No one has the right to refuse to be a responsible adult if they are of sound mind. I do not have a right to shit on others property, and they do not on mine. It is the golden rule. The person is free to be who they want but they are not entitled to degenerate the sidewalks and community. We pay for it!
They should be sent social services. They need to be evaluated on what their needs are. Psychiatric care, drug and alcohol rehab, in or outpatient care, group homes, or possibly incarceration (if they have committed crimes.
We can't use a one size solution. One size doesn't fit everyone.
I'm compassionate and have a good understanding of mental health. I worked in health care, and I have a mental illness. I have taken undergraduate psychology and sociology classes.
I'm not an expert by any definition, but I have some basic understanding.
I felt it Psychiatric Hospitals are not fun. They are necessary at times.
You think a lot of your opinion. Quit that shit. Your know where near that important
@@LeeOPendleton take a hike r374rd
It’s unconstitutional people have the right to be free. What is mentally healthy?
Behavior within +/- 1.5 standard deviations of the mean.
Jack LeVan well said
The big question is always: what happens when the State declares distrust of the State a mental illness?
I’ll take my chances with the crazies on the street.
When that happens I'll take my chances with the rebels in the hills.
You are a coward. To much of a pussy to make the tough decisions in life. That's why the west is in decline. Most people are fucking weak
JD: Well replying to your silly scenario: 1. "The State" doesn't control the DSM or ICD 2. "The State" doesn't diagnose or treat patients, doctors do. 3. It is simple to create case review panels with multiple doctors to avoid error.
@@KB4QAA The ICD decided that playing too much video games is a mental illness, even though experts say that they are unsure whether it actually is a mental illness. Do you really want people like that to decide on people's freedom? Because that's what it ultimately is - psychiatrists are the judges in involuntary commitment cases and they judge you based on a very brief conversation.
They are taken advatage of. I've chaplained and volunteered at several large city rescue missions. The criminals take advantage of the weak, stealing raping, and attacking them. They need help and protection.
It’s time to shut them down permanently
If mental illness isnt real then i wonder why so many active and former soldiers suicide....
Guilt from killing other people
@@simonpetrikov3992 thats certainly a theory, but then a lot of the soldiers that do it havent seved overseas.... So, probably not.m
its not that what you know by mental illness does not exist. but the scientific term for illness does not fit for these things. as they are diferent things. that should not be treated as such.
@@confidencial7964 what different thing is it? And how should it be treated?
@@Theggman83
Atleast when people kill themselves (suicides) they are not physically harming someone else.
People should have the right to kill themselves if they want to.
Yes, it sucks for the families but if that person is severely unhappy, and is of age, should be able to decided if he/she wants to end it.
People might not like it, might not agree with it, but it's their life, not ours. People should have the free will to choose to end it.
There's almost 8 billions of people in the world. 8 billions. Is it really gonna affect the world when some people choose to kill themselves???
The motivation of families and programs for diabled children, some who were once committed to institutions, has been successful. For severely mentally ill adults there isn't enough of a support system. They are on their own. It's like the woman who's fallen and can't get up. She's good until she's not.
Nah thry need to bring asylums back. Some people just cant function within society.
We absolutely should!
They most definitely need to be reopened! Mental health is running rampant in our country!
i guess the answer is to give them drugs that don't work and abuse them, idiot.
seth hillyer It’s not the 1930’s you moron! And your right doing nothing is so much better! Let them shit, piss and leave needles all over the streets. Use your fucking brain not your feeling before you open your mouth!
Yeah so they can experiment on people and abuse them while enriching corrupt politicians and businesses ?
Prevention would entail including those that will never hurt anyone and treat them the same. Nobody can predict the future. There is no litmus test. You must wait for one to do harm. We do this with everyone else. People have rights and suspending those rights because someone MIGHT do harm is wrong. There are trade-offs and I prefer freedom and the risks that come along with it instead of overzealous protection from things that may or may not do harm.
I've worked in several adult foster homes for the "mentally ill" for years and these folks don't belong in communities. It's not fair to neighbors in these towns with residents of the group homes walking around outside screaming and cops being called to the homes regularly for fighting and property damage the residents belong in institutions - WITHOUT the abuse and sub-standard care.
Hey, I'm from Modesto. We have a large amount of homeless here, mainly due to mental illness and drug use. If we could bring back hospitals for the mentally ill, we could probably get more than half of the homeless here off the streets.
One of the biggest problems with mental health care in the US is the notion of a "one size fits all" approach to it. Just as different drugs are prescribed to patients, so should the notion of hospitalization/institutionalization. There can be guidelines, yes, but decisions should be made by mental health professionals, patient families, and whenever possible, patients themselves.
I've been hospitalized in psychiatric clinics four times, three times two years ago and one time last years. I do everything I am able to hide my symptoms, I hated every minute in those places.
Your rights dont exist in those places.
Of course they don’t, which is truly unfortunate. If everyone tells you you’re crazy, you’d eventually feel slightly crazy. Look up the origins of the DSM it was essentially made up by a group of psychiatrists who randomly made up disorders. There are lectures on it on youtube and they are very illuminating
Great video. One of the most thoughtful, interesting things I’ve seen on Reason.
The thing is, private hospitals can abuse this too. I've read stories of people just going in because they were suicidal, then being deemed dangerous and forced for a semi-permanent stay because the additional patients bring revenue into the hospital.
Though any institution where people are held against their will is prone to abuses.
Great plan, lets do nothing then?
@@dezznutz3743 Precisely. We do nothing. We wait for something good to happen.
I am 100% a Libertarian. However you need to know the sheer burden of having a Family Member who is 100% out of their mind. It gets to a point you cut them off and they end up roaming the streets.
We need to do something with them.
I find myself agreeing with libertarian arguements too and yes there needs to be places apart from elderly homes to take care of those that are unwell mentally.
Ye must be born again! John 3: 3-7
We need to bring back mental hospitals but actually regulate them and make sure abuse and neglect isn't rampant. That's what was wrong with the old ones. They weren't hospitals just places for people to use and abuse the innocent.
@Brown Incel brown ☠️
This problem exists because of funding cut from the 81 omnibus reconciliation act. If society doesn’t deem these problems worthy of financing then they deserve what they get.
Absolutely asinine ! Learn from mistakes...don't repeat them !!! Cycles off stupidity and another example of the epitome of malignorance(cancerous stupidity !).
I have autism and bipolar disorder. Im 24 and i was born in 97. Thankfully i was pretty normal and all the issue's kinda fizzled out as i grew up. in fact id argure im more competent then my peers in a number of ways. BUT i also had tons of help from tons of people to get to where i am today. Just like that one guy who had sever depression it can also open things up to abuse and with such a slippery slope thats why mental hospitals were abandoned.
Until everyone knows the name and address of the major psychiatric hospital in their city. This problem will just boil and continue to fester, and the infection will spread.
If mental illness is so rampant and the mentally ill so out of control then why is a not guilty by reason of insanity defense rarely if ever successful?
In the UK we closed all our mental hospitals and replaced them with the 'care into the community' scheme which supposedly hasnt gone down too well and some also want them back
The more these psychiatrist talk about the mentally ill, the more I'm convinced they're describing SJW ideologues!
GEE.....i heard you guys think trump was selected by god to be president........he he he........
Advocates. Here comes a generalization.
Patients rights advocates are often no different than advocates for any other group. They're far less concerned with the group's well-being than they are their own self-aggrandizement, power, and/or influence.
Whatever happened to "flophouses", where transients and homeless people (especially the mentally ill homeless) could spent a night or even several nights in a building with running water and heat, and often pay for a room with very little money?
They need to open them up again 🙋
That sounds crazy. I'm here to help you. Come get in this van.
I agree. Some of these folks simply shouldn’t be on the streets. They’re a danger to themselves and others. Opposers will just have to get over it.
I actually worked with developmentally disabled adults. I don't today because I got sick of being assaulted for minimum wage.
The misuse of the mental health excuse/diagnosis is a scary thing. Just like lobotomy, you can get a medical field that is toxic.
How about a mental health facility that looks more like a park than a prison? How about dedicated helpers for each patient? There are better ways to help people, especially ways that don't look forced and give the patient freedom. We need far better treatment than the violence of petrochemical drugs, lobotomies, and electroconvulsive shock.
What if there were mental facilities that dont keep people couped up or in the same place every single minute of the day?
Szazs had a lot of valid points but also giant blindspots. He escaped from behind the Iron Curtain where mental hospitals were primarily used to contain political dissidents. After Stalin, troublesome elites weren't killed but had their opposition to the State attributed to a mental breakdown. They didn't define opposition as a mental illness but as the result of a mental illness. Non-elites were simply sent brutal prison system were most died. As wth all things Communist, they got the same results a the Nazi Eugenics "euthanasia" program without the bad press. Communist didn't even recognize mental illness beyond nervous exhaustion because they saw it as an attribute of capitalism's environment. Sass thus had a jaded view of psychiatry from the get go.
He also wrote in the late 60s and early 70s at a time when radical environmental determinism was the dominate intellectual paradigm. Virtually nobody advocated for the idea that mental illnesses had a biological origin. (This concept was used by Supreme Court's decisions regarding the ability of state to commit people. )
So, Szazs' idea that mental illness just comprised socially or politically unwanted behavior was just a radical version of an academically acceptable concept.
Unfortunately, these types of ideas caused the destruction of mental health facilities across the developed world before proven alternatives became available. At the time courts and laws established the rule that individuals had the right to live in any public space and the modern homeless mentally ill problem was born.
He's points were correct! If you listen carefully and think about it.
When he said that homosexually was initially a mental illness and later on it wasn't?, Just think about it.
I worked in a mental hospital in the 70s. It was a much better life than the streets.
Regonisum
54 years old , I remember when they closed down mental hospitals. They need to open them back up and get them off the streets!!!
The kindest thing would be to put them down.
We need to deal with severe persistent mental illness and have a place for them to get well and be safe for themselves or others. We just need better oversight and sometimes people will not go voluntarily so we do need commitments and mandatory treatment. How can someone who does not have a grip on reality make an informed decision on their best interest. I had an aunt who had a lobotomy that worked and she sent money every month to thank them for the rest of her life. She tried to kill her family at night while in bed by starting the house on fire. Deinstitutionalization was a horrible inhumane thing.
*Forced* institutionalization is bad. It will **always** be abused. But voluntary self-hospitalization should be an option, and we should help these people with state funding
Your wrong - there ARE some people that NEED forced incarceration because they are a danger to themselves and others.
Not everything has a solution. Using force to imprison people is probably worse than the problem it hopes to solve.
Well I supposes it is good that I didn't say that.
Was looking for an explanation about why mental hospitals have disappeared and this vid answered it perfectly and also provided further info.
Thank you very much. What a sad situation.
I remember in the 80's when most of those people ended up on the street. The media blamed Reagan for it?
That's because he took away their funding immediately after taking office.
Jimmy Carter had just granted funding for mental health institutions before Reagan was elected.
The asylums were in terrible condition so instead of actually fixing up the centers, they were instead shut down putting thousands of the mentally ill on the street.
@@redpilledhispanic1239 now those same mental asylums are either crumbling ruins, or have been demolished taking its history with it.
We did not Shut Down State Mental Hospitals, we just renamed them universities.
Your not kidding..
Sarcasm is just one more service I offer.:-) @@BAZZAROU812
Sad but true, I've seen a lot of nutters during my days in Uni, I cut ties with every mofo there after graduation
The issue is that a REAL therapist cost 200-1,000$ an hour! And when you seek help they usually just give you a "councler" who barley has an AA degree. Mental health care in america is non existent.
FetchQuestAssigner 4432 People's time is not free.
I was committed and put on meds. The meds caused me to be in AGONY for as long as I took them which was YEARS. None of my family believed me. Eventually I started drinking then smoking after ALWAYS turning down drugs and alcohol😢. Life isn't fair but my life was destroyed by the mental hospital AND ALL WHO KEPT ME THERE!!!. All that someone saying that their experience in the mental hospital was good or saying there should be more involuntary commitment makes me realize is how few will really go to heaven.
did they ever restrain you in 5 point?
Yes exactly. I hate and dont respect that damn doggone shit. To experience anything like that STINKS like funky buttcrack.
Yeah that happened to my best friend. She was given psychiatric drugs that caused her physical pain and they wouldn’t give her pain killer because they said it would affect the meds and they told her the pain was a motivator to behave. It was ridiculous and to top it off they gave her illegal shock therapy without her consent, starved her, kept her locked and strapped down for 3 days, and when she mentioned she was a Christian they forced her to watch wizard of oz and told her oz was God and Jesus and to come back to reality. It was awful. They take away your right to pray and worship in mental hospitals and ban you from talking. It scares me people want the asylums back. Some of my family members want everyone locked away. It isn’t right.
Thank you for the thoughtful reporting.
It would be interesting to hear more about the link with drug use and mental health. Both prescribed drugs and street drugs connection to things like paranoia.
This is, hands down, the most thorough, balanced and frankly best video I have ever seen on this channel. Well done.
This is what is wrong with america these days.
Bad parenting and shear wanton bad behaviour is now ADHD.
Yeah nothing at all to do with fascist left leaning teachers who hate boys and everything that is masculine. Totally not an issue with "educators" labeling students they dislike as having adhd... GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!
End the war on drugs, legalize drugs, transform many jails/prisons into mental facilities.
You do understand that the majority of drug crime is violent crime where drugs were found not just mere possession?
@@davidgrover5996 That's a huge generalization. What about context? Most drug-related crime is drug dealer beefs or addicts trying to fix their need due to high drug prices.
J K, Most Drug related crime is theft to pay for basic needs and drugs, (Addicts make poor employees so crime is how they get by.) interpersonal violence, (Addicts have poor impulse control and decision making ability.) prostitution, and prostitution related issues. (Once again addicts make poor employees so this becomes an option but prostitution has its own sub problems.)
It is in the interest of drug dealers to keep the violence to a minimum so that they can sell their drugs. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen but it is far rarer than other drug related crimes.