[Magdalen] Washington Post article on involuntary hospitalization of the ...

[Cantor03 at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/15/2015 11:35:12 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
oppenheimerjw at gmail.com writes:

Mental  health care has generally been pretty decent; it's only that the
electorate  (you and me) absolutely will not pay what it costs to run it
correctly, and  never really has.>>>
I'm old enough to remember the transition from essentially no
drug treatment of mental health issues to the advent of Thorazine  which
I think was the first widely utilized psychotherapeutic drug.
 
As a senior in UW-Madison Medical School, we had required day  trips
to the three State "mental" hospitals and the "Hospital for the  Criminally 
Insane"
for those with violent medical problems.  In every case, I  remember the
hospital administrators extolling the wonders of this new drug,  Thorazine,
with comments like "If you had been taking this tour a year ago  
(pre-treatment)
you would get the impression that mental hospitals are all Bedlam."  
 
Pretty much all of that screaming and sometimes violent acting out of  
patients
had been replaced with tranquility.  Was it good treatment for the  
patients?
Probably questionable.  Was it nice for the hospital  staffs?  Quite 
certainly.
 
In the succeeding years, the population of these four mental  institutions
has dropped sharply, with better drugs used on an outpatient basis,  plus
the development of "half-way houses" in which an attempt at  ordinary
life is arranged for mental patients.  
 
 
David Strang.