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Time to bring back asylums?

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Re: Time to bring back asylums?

#221

Post by 1000bestlives »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #11

Asylums still exist. What this person wants to bring back is the ability to lock people up and keep people locked up there with little recourse. A typical case from this time[1]: > [Cramer] frankly discusses the “regimented, often hopeless conditions of state mental hospitals”, talks about a hospital in Alabama where “care was worse than simply inadequate: one psychiatrist for 5000 patients; astonishingly low funding…

It's so weird how people get taken advantage of when they abdicate their responsibility to themselves.

Re: Time to bring back asylums?

#222

Post by yardstick »

phatskat wrote: post #129
yardstick wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of those require resources. Or are you going to grow your own trees and build a log cabin yourself? How much time will that take? Can you build it by yourself or will you need someone elses help? These are all resources that are not unlimited, and there are trade offs whatever way you allocate said resources. Edit: also power, water, wastewater, internet for a house are services run using limited resources

First off there’s lots of housing or housable space - office buildings with tons of vacant rooms, Airbnb style properties that are just profit machines, hotels rarely at capacity, abandoned or unaffordable houses, vacation homes. There’s plenty of housing. Then let’s talk about restaurants and grocery stores and farms and factories where food is routinely thrown away daily. Can’t let employees take food home from the…

Going back to your original post:

“ We can house feed and care for every person on the planet but we don’t because money. A made up concept that has no actual value outside of what we place on it.”

Try do anything you are talking about without the involvement of money or barter. It ain’t going to happen.

No one is going to work in a crappy job if they can avoid it.

Who is going build new properties or repair dilapidated buildings without money or some other incentive?

Why would anyone build more than they personally need?

Who is going to build/repair/modify homes for disabled people to live in without financial incentive?

You need money for all of this.

Re: Time to bring back asylums?

#223

Post by creata »

imgabe wrote: post #219
creata wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If something goes really badly, and someone wants to try it again, the natural questions to ask that person are: * What do you think are the reasons why it went badly last time? * What are you proposing we do differently? * Are you sure that they weren't already doing that last time? * How do you think that this change would avoid things going badly again? Could you explicitly answer those questions? Maybe I'm just b…

I think coming up with a comprehensive mental health policy is a little beyond the scope of a HN comment, and certainly far beyond my expertise. I merely posit that such a policy could exist, and could be developed. I don't see why not. I mean, the comments here are like "b-b-but homosexuality used to be considered a mental illness!". Right, it was , but now it's not . So it seems pretty clear that to prevent people…

> I think coming up with a comprehensive mental health policy is a little beyond the scope of a HN comment

True, but that's clearly not what I asked for.

> If there are, we already have an example in homosexuality of how we can stop considering them mental illnesses. It's clearly a thing that's possible to do, so if necessary, let's do that.

Also true, but (1) our understanding of what should be treated as a mental illness can regress, and (2) that's not much solace for all the people harmed between now and when we as a society agree that they shouldn't be considered mentally ill.

Re: Time to bring back asylums?

#224

Post by justanotherjoe »

uejfiweun wrote: post #24

Clearly HN does not seem to like this idea so much. But I do have to ask, what exactly do you propose as a solution to the massive, growing hordes of drug addicted zombies in west coast cities? You can't tell me that this problem doesn't exist, anyone who's been to a west coast city knows it's very real. The past 20 years of the "compassion" approach or whatever is clearly a total disaster. At what point do we just s…

Sense of urgency often made people do the most harm. Sometimes the best thing to do is to do nothing. Who knows in the future there will be a good answer if we wait.

Re: Time to bring back asylums?

#225

Post by thwy435384 »

m463 wrote: post #65
amadeuspagel wrote: post #11

Asylums still exist. What this person wants to bring back is the ability to lock people up and keep people locked up there with little recourse. A typical case from this time[1]: > [Cramer] frankly discusses the “regimented, often hopeless conditions of state mental hospitals”, talks about a hospital in Alabama where “care was worse than simply inadequate: one psychiatrist for 5000 patients; astonishingly low funding…

As someone with direct experience with someone that has a mental illness, there needs to be something better than the present system. I think something went right, then wrong with the treatment of mental illness in california. Years ago, when the laws were changed to allow mentally-ill but benign or even non-ill people to escape the "snake pits", lots of people could recover. But later state mental illness funding wa…

The reason it was likely done away with is because it was abused. There will always be cases like that, most you'll never hear about. The mentally ill are also an easy target for haters with government power.

Re: Time to bring back asylums?

#226

Post by woeirua »

phatskat wrote: post #123
graeme wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Canada we have free health care and a similar homelessness situation as in the US. USA 17.5 per 10K Canada 10 per 10K Americans like to think that universal health care solves every problem but it really doesn’t. It’s a good system and helps many things but not a panacea.

Your healthcare system doesn’t (from my anecdotal experience knowing someone in Ontario) cover that much mental health. She could effectively see a therapist a few times of year before it became an out of pocket expense. If we want to address homelessness that’s related to mental health we need much better access. We also need housing, food. We need things that are doable but we don’t do them because capitalism doesn…

There is a strong belief in some circles that outpatient mental health care can cure most people. It cannot, and that is one of the fundamental flaws with the community based treatment model. First, many conditions can only be managed with current therapies. Second, there are many people who are so far gone that they can no longer even effectively treat themselves. Leaving them in the community to slowly die, strangled by their own minds, is not humane. Especially when we know that intensive inpatient mental health treatment can drastically increase quality of life for many of these people.

Do we need more safeguards? Yes. But inpatient mental health treatment needs to be viewed as a first line treatment in some cases, rather than a treatment of absolute last resort.

Re: Time to bring back asylums?

#227

Post by raverbashing »

graeme wrote: post #213
sudosysgen wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mental healthcare coverage in Canada is pretty abysmal. It's barely covered at all unless you're in a crisis situation, which is not very different from many US states.

That’s fair. Though to be clear the following are covered: * Family doctor or clinic visits for mental health * Psychiatrist visits * In most provinces, medications Talk therapy through a psychologist is what is generally not covered outside of work insurance. That’s a big gap, but also not quite right to say “not covered at all”.

Yes and then if you are in a crisis they will book you for a specialist psychiatric visit... in 2 weeks time if you're lucky, or maybe 2 years from now

Re: Time to bring back asylums?

#228

Post by woeirua »

bobthepanda wrote: post #60
warning26 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What this person wants to bring back is the ability to lock people up and keep people locked up there with little recourse. Yes. This is what we need; the fact is, many mentally ill individuals need help, but are not capable of realizing that they need help, and will refuse any attempt to offer it. Without the power to detain such an individual against their will, that person will remain on the streets, which is a…

The issue is that when you carve out exceptions to human rights, they get abused. If you can suspend the rights of someone declared mentally ill, the unscrupulous parts of government will be tempted to declare politically inconvenient people mentally ill and strip them of their rights. Even in the United States, this happened during the suffragette movement; those women hunger striking for the vote were sometimes imp…

Yes, there will be some abuse. But the question should be will we still reduce suffering overall? Fighting your own mind is insufferable. It is not humane to let people wander the streets locked in an eternal battle with themselves. I vote yes, bring back involuntary inpatient therapies, but with strict safeguards.

Re: Time to bring back asylums?

#229

Post by bobthepanda »

kelnos wrote: post #194
bobthepanda wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that when you carve out exceptions to human rights, they get abused. If you can suspend the rights of someone declared mentally ill, the unscrupulous parts of government will be tempted to declare politically inconvenient people mentally ill and strip them of their rights. Even in the United States, this happened during the suffragette movement; those women hunger striking for the vote were sometimes imp…

Safeguards can be put into place, and these days it's easier to shine light on things (and get information about abuses out to the world) than it was in the past, but I agree that there will be abuse. I think we have to accept that, unfortunately. Our current situation is untenable, and there really just does not seem to be any way to "fix" someone on the streets with a mental illness without committing them to a men…

In general the root cause situation is the same; the housing is too expensive, there are not enough mental health professionals or drug treatment professionals in general due to the cost of schooling vs the compensation. It’s the same in and out of prison, and calling it an ‘asylum’ doesn’t really change the fact that when those were around people were not getting better anyways.

Re: Time to bring back asylums?

#230

Post by imgabe »

creata wrote: post #223
imgabe wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think coming up with a comprehensive mental health policy is a little beyond the scope of a HN comment, and certainly far beyond my expertise. I merely posit that such a policy could exist, and could be developed. I don't see why not. I mean, the comments here are like "b-b-but homosexuality used to be considered a mental illness!". Right, it was , but now it's not . So it seems pretty clear that to prevent people…

> I think coming up with a comprehensive mental health policy is a little beyond the scope of a HN comment True, but that's clearly not what I asked for. > If there are, we already have an example in homosexuality of how we can stop considering them mental illnesses. It's clearly a thing that's possible to do, so if necessary, let's do that. Also true, but (1) our understanding of what should be treated as a mental i…

A few years ago a woman was murdered on the block where I worked. She was out jogging in the evening and was stabbed by a schizophrenic homeless man. The murderer had been arrested several times, they knew he was ill, but he couldn't be forced to receive treatment.

What's the solace you offer for her family? "Hey sorry your daughter got killed, but maybe people won't be unjustly institutionalized in this hypothetical scenario I dreamed up where US civil rights suddenly regresses 60 years for no reason"?

Sorry, I don't find that very compelling. I'm pretty sure we can regulate institutions better, knowing what mistakes were made in the past.

People are human, they make mistakes. Sometimes they're wrong or even malicious. Yes, some people might be harmed in institutions. But, people are also being harmed right now. There's no scenario in which there is zero harm. You try to reduce harm as much you can and evaluate and adjust along the way. That's how you make progress. If you paralyze society by demanding perfect solutions, the result is stagnation and death.

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