Treatment of mental disorders and schizophrenia
Introduction
Mad in America presents an argument that is powerfully troubling against the approach used in psychiatry to treat mental disorders and schizophrenia in the united states. In the beginning, the book describes the earliest treatment for insane persons during the 1750s-1950s in Europe and the US. Some instances explain that after WWII, neuroleptic treatments encouraged a new change in how to eradicate schizophrenia effectively. However, Whitaker acknowledges that the new changes were dangerous and ineffective and could be easily compared to traditional remedies forced on patients.
- The first theme is mad medicine today. In the United States, schizophrenia treatments recently are at higher levels compared to those found in developing countries. According to Robert Whitaker, today’s medications for the people who are mentally sick, for example, are just old medicines packed in new bottles. Society has, therefore, been eluded by the efficacy of the medications. There was much use of lobotomies during the 1920s/1930s, which paved the way for the electroshock and other types of new drugs beginning the 1950s (Whitaker, 2001). The organizations producing drugs in the 1980s had to skew studies only to convince people that the latest antipsychotic drugs were much better than the old ones. The studies failed to explain the side effects of drugs on patients. The theme is used to raise critical questions regarding the mad and real meaning of insanity to describe what is more concerned in the human mind. The second theme is the early treatment of the mentally ill. In the 17th and 18th centuries, people with mental problems were seen to be brutes in society. In resulted in the development of torturous somatic treatments and other psychiatric hospitals that became a big business. A group of quackers in France and England in the 19th century began to treat sick people using the treatment morale of philosophy. The idea included retreat-like settings, superintendents, and human acts for the patients as well as giving them incentives if they behave correctly. hospitals in the united states that used somatic medications and the treatment morales increased in 1800.
(2)The health care system of the united states shifted from using the philosophy of treatment morales in the 1800s to an increased
level of pharmaceutical industries that produced bottled drugs. The first evolution of healthcare was asylum care that ranged between 1750 to 1950. In developed into eugenics and segregation of persons with mental illness. The history of mental illness in America is a good representation illustrating the development of psychiatry and the community’s knowledge of mental illness and other attitudes directed towards mental health care. According to Whitaker, the ancient information of mental illness was seen as a divine punishment to the people in many cultures (Whitaker, 2002). There were negative attitudes showed towards mental illness in America in the 1800s, contributing to the stigmatization of the disorder and confinement of affected people, an unhygienic aspect. After the second world war, there began significant improvements in the US health care system and facilitated a better treatment for schizophrenia. The author argued that the new medications introduced can be compared to the first remedies that were forced to the patients at the beginning of medical invention philosophies. The earlier health care in the US was a pseudo-scientific narrative that was closely followed by and necessitated by a unique block of responses and expenditures. The system and the story have been dominated by the health and medicine organizations forming an approach that was preferable t mental health. The perspective was awkwardly accorded the legitimacy band the status of an empirical research hat was purported to help the psychological wellbeing of human beings. The mental illness among the people was seen to be a material wastage, and therefore, the victims were supposed to be denied human rights. The mad doctors in that period often needed a professional image, as indicated by Whitaker. Parallels of evolution included the development of antipsychotics that have assisted medics in coming with unique ideas, further treating the patients. The delivery of cost-effective scientific medical treatments was a critical aspect of the early psychiatry (Whitaker, 2004). The evolution moved from the use of miracle drugs such as chlorpromazine, which made some patients violent and more ill to using scientifically evidence-based medicines that had no side effects. The cultures of the people diverged the mental and physical health by arguing in some instances, that the mentally ill are brutes.
(3)
It is true that the beliefs and values of many American cultures contributed to shaping of the health care system. the ancient doctors and the community in America believed in the power of the miracle drugs to heal them. The beliefs helped to reveal that the medicines used were dangerous to human health and they encouraged the mad doctors to seek for effective means to continue treating their patients (Whitaker, 2003). During the evolution of the asylum care, the people value treatment that was moral.
It was therefore essential to offer medicines that could treat people with humanity and humility. The outcome of schizophrenia is better in the united states because of the supportive nature of the cultures
in the country as opposed to those in the developing countries. The humane and fatherly superintendents managed to enhance the success of the traitment morales because of the support and belief that people had in the health system. according to Whitakers, summary statement, many americans criticized the scientific approaches that were used in the development of medicines (Pols, 2003). Madness for example is precisely afoot in the US psychiatry. The values held by scientists and the cultural groups in the country have helped to raise questions and try to get answers at every step of health care evolution. The death of many patients in the countrys belief system was immoral and it led the mad doctors to try and better their professional image. They had to every drug ranging from animals hormones to prefrontal lobotomy to ensure that they reduce the mortality rate and win the trust of the religious and cultural people.