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One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Reflection Essay

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Recommended: History Of Mental Illness During The Late 19Th Century

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Reflection Piece
This novel informs readers on how the 1960’s decade treated victims of mental illnesses. There is an enormous social stigma regarding mental illnesses and mixing in with the lack of medical research, resources and knowledge, patients are suffering from poor treatment, which ultimately leads to suicides in some cases. This is clear when Billy slits his throat in the ward after Nurse Ratched shames him for participating in sexual activity then threatens to tell his mother (Kesey 314-318). The mental institution is a place to recover and heal from a disease, not a place to make the patient more ill. The isolation, lack of empathy and shame authorities place upon the sufferers, is purely unethical. …show more content…

No one likes to make themselves vulnerable to another person by discussing their weaknesses and struggles in life for fear of judgement but these patients are searching for our help. Their vulnerability is in the hands of medical professionals and to respond to their cry for help with unhealthy treatment, is blatant betrayal. We are using their weakness to our advantage to make ourselves feel superior. This reveals the nasty side humanity has of obtaining a desperate need for power. Moving forward, from this knowledge, humanity should learn to appreciate the bravery mental illness patients face from coping with their illness and reject the instinctive craving for superiority. We must provide victims with the proper care, treatment and attention for the human race will not progress if we ignore a large portion of population. We are all in this society together, it is not in our nature to abandon, but in our nature to love and care for others. This in turn benefits society to be more progressive as a healthy species. The more we are educated on mental health, the easier it becomes to heal those. In fact, knowledge is power and this type of power is the ultimate satisfaction and

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