Hunter College school of social work |
The Mental Health Community |
|
|
Ilia Lopez |
|
Social Work Practice and Learning Lab II (718)
Professor: Norma Uriguen
July 2010
|
This article will focus on: the American historical journey of the treatment of those that have been labeled as having a mental disorder and its connection to the current social, political and economic ramifications impacting those with a mental health condition. An entire community of people has been abused in the name of making sane those that have gone “mad”.
Within our society and the world at large community problems of concern exist – particularly as it relates to people that fall outside of the broader community’s values and belief systems.
Today, mental illness is an explanatory name used to describe people whose functional capacity may be limited in areas of psychological functioning, social integration, and conduct. According to the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM IV) the nature of such condition is biological in nature. The DSM IV defines mental disorder as follows:
In the DSM, each of the mental disorders is conceptualized as a clinically significant
behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in a person that is associated
with present distress (a painful symptom) or disability (impairment in one or more important
areas of functioning) or with a significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability,
or an important loss of freedom. In addition, this syndrome or pattern must not be merely an
expectable and culturally sanctioned response to a particular event, for example, the death
of a loved one. Whatever its original cause, it must currently be considered a manifestation
of a behavioral, psychological, or biological dysfunction in the individual. Neither deviant
behavior (e.g. political, religious, or sexual) nor conflicts that are primarily between the...