Recovering The Us Mental Health Care System

Download or read book Recovering the US Mental Healthcare System written by Meaghan Stacy and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-02-24 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a vital resource for anyone looking to better support people with psychosis and serious mental illnesses.

Download or read book Improving the Quality of Health Care for Mental and Substance-Use Conditions written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2006-03-29 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each year, more than 33 million Americans receive health care for mental or substance-use conditions, or both. Together, mental and substance-use illnesses are the leading cause of death and disability for women, the highest for men ages 15-44, and the second highest for all men. Effective treatments exist, but services are frequently fragmented and, as with general health care, there are barriers that prevent many from receiving these treatments as designed or at all. The consequences of this are seriousâ€"for these individuals and their families; their employers and the workforce; for the nation's economy; as well as the education, welfare, and justice systems. Improving the Quality of Health Care for Mental and Substance-Use Conditions examines the distinctive characteristics of health care for mental and substance-use conditions, including payment, benefit coverage, and regulatory issues, as well as health care organization and delivery issues. This new volume in the Quality Chasm series puts forth an agenda for improving the quality of this care based on this analysis. Patients and their families, primary health care providers, specialty mental health and substance-use treatment providers, health care organizations, health plans, purchasers of group health care, and all involved in health care for mental and substanceâ€"use conditions will benefit from this guide to achieving better care.

Download or read book Healing written by Thomas Insel, MD and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold, expert, and actionable map for the re-invention of America’s broken mental health care system. “Healing is truly one of the best books ever written about mental illness, and I think I’ve read them all." —Pete Earley, author of Crazy As director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Thomas Insel was giving a presentation when the father of a boy with schizophrenia yelled from the back of the room, “Our house is on fire and you’re telling me about the chemistry of the paint! What are you doing to put out the fire?” Dr. Insel knew in his heart that the answer was not nearly enough. The gargantuan American mental health industry was not healing millions who were desperately in need. He left his position atop the mental health research world to investigate all that was broken—and what a better path to mental health might look like. In the United States, we have treatments that work, but our system fails at every stage to deliver care well. Even before COVID, mental illness was claiming a life every eleven minutes by suicide. Quality of care varies widely, and much of the field lacks accountability. We focus on drug therapies for symptom reduction rather than on plans for long-term recovery. Care is often unaffordable and unavailable, particularly for those who need it most and are homeless or incarcerated. Where was the justice for the millions of Americans suffering from mental illness? Who was helping their families? But Dr. Insel also found that we do have approaches that work, both in the U.S. and globally. Mental illnesses are medical problems, but he discovers that the cures for the crisis are not just medical, but social. This path to healing, built upon what he calls the three Ps (people, place, and purpose), is more straightforward than we might imagine. Dr. Insel offers a comprehensive plan for our failing system and for families trying to discern the way forward. The fruit of a lifetime of expertise and a global quest for answers, Healing is a hopeful, actionable account and achievable vision for us all in this time of mental health crisis.

Download or read book American Psychosis written by E. Fuller Torrey and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-22 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1963, President John F. Kennedy delivered an historic speech on mental illness and retardation. He described sweeping new programs to replace "the shabby treatment of the many millions of the mentally disabled in custodial institutions" with treatment in community mental health centers. This movement, later referred to as "deinstitutionalization," continues to impact mental health care. Though he never publicly acknowledged it, the program was a tribute to Kennedy's sister Rosemary, who was born mildly retarded and developed a schizophrenia-like illness. Terrified she'd become pregnant, Joseph Kennedy arranged for his daughter to receive a lobotomy, which was a disaster and left her severely retarded. Fifty years after Kennedy's speech, E. Fuller Torrey's book provides an inside perspective on the birth of the federal mental health program. On staff at the National Institute of Mental Health when the program was being developed and implemented, Torrey draws on his own first-hand account of the creation and launch of the program, extensive research, one-on-one interviews with people involved, and recently unearthed audiotapes of interviews with major figures involved in the legislation. As such, this book provides historical material previously unavailable to the public. Torrey examines the Kennedys' involvement in the policy, the role of major players, the responsibility of the state versus the federal government in caring for the mentally ill, the political maneuverings required to pass the legislation, and how closing institutions resulted not in better care - as was the aim - but in underfunded programs, neglect, and higher rates of community violence. Many now wonder why public mental illness services are so ineffective. At least one-third of the homeless are seriously mentally ill, jails and prisons are grossly overcrowded, largely because the seriously mentally ill constitute 20 percent of prisoners, and public facilities are overrun by untreated individuals. As Torrey argues, it is imperative to understand how we got here in order to move forward towards providing better care for the most vulnerable.

Download or read book Redesigning the US Mental Health Care System written by Sydney S. Harris and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What is commonly referred to in the U.S. as the "mental health care system" is not really a system at all. While excellent programs exist in every state, in every community across America the "system" is actually a set of fragmented services provided inequitably by a haphazard array of specialty providers, often with inadequate resources and only tenuously connected to health care systems for other health needs. Crisis is too often the first point of contact for people experiencing a mental illness, while year-over-year increases in rates of anxiety, depression, traumatic stress, and death from suicide and overdose have led many to characterize the current situation as a 'pandemic' or 'epidemic' of mental illness, constituting a 'national emergency.' For youth and young adults, in late 2021 this emergency was formally recognized by the U.S. Surgeon General in the first Advisory ever issued regarding the nation's mental health"--

Download or read book The Family Guide to Mental Health Care written by Lloyd I. Sederer MD and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advice on Helping Your Loved Ones, from the medical director of the country's largest state mental health system and the mental health editor of The Huffington Post More than fifty million people a year are diagnosed with some form of mental illness. It spares no sex, race, age, ethnicity, or income level. And left untreated, mental disorders can devastate our families and communities. Family members and friends are often the first to realize when someone has a problem, but it is hard to know how to help or where to turn. Our mental health “system” can feel like a bewildering and frustrating maze. How can you tell that someone has a mental illness? What are the first and best steps for you to take? Where do you go to find the right care? The Family Guide to Mental Health Care is the first comprehensive print resource for the millions of people who have loved ones suffering from some kind of mental illness. In this book, families can find the answers to their most urgent questions. What medications are helpful and are some as dangerous as I think? Is there a way to navigate privacy laws so I can discuss my adult daughter’s treatment with her doctor? Is my teenager experiencing typical adolescent distress or an illness? From understanding depression, bipolar illness and anxiety to eating and traumatic disorders, schizophrenia, and much more, readers will learn what to do and how to help. Real-life scenarios and authoritative information are written in a compassionate, reader-friendly way, including checklists to bring to a doctor’s appointment so you can ask the right questions. For readers who fear they will never see the light at the end of the tunnel, this book gives hope and a path forward. As one of the nation’s leading voices on quality care in mental health, Dr. Lloyd Sederer has played a singular role in advancing services for those with mental illness. Now, the wealth of his expertise and clear guidance is at your disposal. From the first signs of a problem to sorting through the variety of treatment options, you and your family will be able to walk into a doctor’s office know what to do and what to ask.

Download or read book Recovery of People with Mental Illness written by Abraham Rudnick and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-30 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is only in the past 20 years that the concept of 'recovery' from mental health has been more widely considered and researched. Before then, it was generally considered that 'stability' was the best that anyone suffering from a mental disorder could hope for. But now it is recognised that, throughout their mental illness, many patients develop new beliefs, feelings, values, attitudes, and ways of dealing with their disorder. The notion of recovery from mental illness is thus rapidly being accepted and is inserting more hope into mainstream psychiatry and other parts of the mental health care system around the world. Yet, in spite of conceptual and other challenges that this notion raises, including a variety of interpretations, there is scarcely any systematic philosophical discussion of it. This book is unique in addressing philosophical issues - including conceptual challenges and opportunities - raised by the notion of recovery of people with mental illness. Such recovery - particularly in relation to serious mental illness such as schizophrenia - is often not about cure and can mean different things to different people. For example, it can mean symptom alleviation, ability to work, or the striving toward mental well-being (with or without symptoms). The book addresses these different meanings and their philosophical grounds, bringing to the fore perspectives of people with mental illness and their families as well as perspectives of philosophers, mental health care providers and researchers, among others. The important new work will contribute to further research, reflective practice and policy making in relation to the recovery of people with mental illness.It is essential reading for philosophers of health, psychiatrists, and other mental care providers, as well as policy makers.