In the 1800s, the mentally ill and prisoners were forced to live in wretched conditions and often were not even treated as regular citizens. Patients of mental institutions were operated on so they were more controllable. The mentally insane that did not live at home were kept in prisons, few were in faulty poorhouses, and even fewer were in hospitals. Many hospitals had mental wards, but they were inadequate for patients. In the 1840s, Dorothea Dix visited many prisons where the deranged were kept and found that these conditions were unsuitable for living quarters (“Dorothea Dix Biography”).
During treatment, the criminally insane are cared for by nurses, psychiatrists and other hospital administrators. For the treatments to be effective, the hospital staff must adapt to the way of life in the psychiatric hospital. In the article “Inside a hospital for the criminally insane” by Caitlin Dickson, posted on The Daily Beast, Dickson shares her readings of a book written by Dr. Stephen Seager about the inside of the Napa State Hospital. Napa State Hospital is home to approximately 12,000 patients and a majority of the patients are rapists, killers and mass murderers (TheDailyBeast). Everyday the hospital staff endures violence and personalities of the patients.
In “Just Mercy” Bryan Stevenson talks about the layers to each incarcerated individual. He talks about the repeated connections between issues such as mental illness and harsh home environments to juvenile offenders and mass incarceration. Stevenson goes into depth about the different internal and external issues that many incarcerated have. “In fact, there are more than three times the number of seriously mentally ill individuals in jail or prison than in hospitals; in some states that number is ten times. And prison is a terrible place for someone with mentally illness or a neurological disorder that prison guards are not trained to understand.
In the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey two of the main characters, Dr. Spivey and Nurse Ratched, have different opinions on the Therapeutic Community of the mental asylum where they work. The Therapeutic Community at the hospital, named the Combine by its patients, is supposed to make the ward a democratic place that puts its patients concerns and requests into consideration. Dr. Spivey uses the Therapeutic Community as a way to make the patients feel like they have more of a say in the way the asylum is run and wants them to feel comfortable. However, Nurse Ratched uses this free environment as a way to show her authority and force confessions out of her patients. Dr. Spivey wants the mental institute patients to benefit from a Therapeutic
In the drama film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest, Patrick McMurphy was moved from a prison farm to a mental institution to get evaluated for his erratic behavior. Upon being transported to the institution, all his assumptions about his new home were completely wrong. The head nurse, Nurse Ratched, has the whole hospital under her control with little to no freedom for the patients. All the inmates at the institution go through rigorous training to become obedient to Nurse Ratched and her strict schedule and rules. The institution was a very controlled environment with the patients having no control over their own life’s while there.
In her opinion she doesn’t have a problem and she feels that she is smarter than the therapists. She has an intense fear of not being liked or not being viewed in positive regard. She has been unwillingly admitted several
He went on to explain that the people in those institutions are very limited to the things they are able to do and the choices that they can make. Simple choices such as what to eat, what to wear, and what to do in your freetime are made for the mentally ill by the workers. The patients are forced to take medication against their will and are also limited to everyday things such as being outside. There is so much dehumanization that occurs that the mental hospital doesn't feel like a place where the patients are receiving help. Instead, the patients themselves refer to being at the mental hospital as “doing time” as they would in
The literary fiction novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, focuses on a mental hospital in Oregon, and the patients that live there. It is told from the perspective of Chief Bromden, a schizophrenic, who compares society to a delusion he calls the Combine. The hospital is ran with strict rules, which are carried out by Nurse Ratched, or as the patients call her, Big Nurse. In the beginning of the book, another main character, Randle McMurphy, is transferred from a local jail into the hospital. Upon arriving, he immediately challenges the rules, and even sneaks in a prostitute.
Ken Kesey’s Relationship with Mental Institutions and its Effect on His Novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Ken Kesey is known as one of the most exceptional American authors of the twentieth century, producing novels such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion. Throughout his lifetime, he had toiled with many different mental health issues that influenced his writings and views on problems in the world. Specifically in One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey sets the story in an insane asylum with the characters as patients. A connection between Kesey’s mental health, a mental institution background, and his novel is found throughout the story. The novel was released during the height of insane asylums and the controversy over how effective locking up inpatients is.
“I don’t think you fully understand the public my friend; in this country, when something is out of order, then the quickest way to get it fixed is the best way” (Kessey, 2,). All of the men in the ward are there because they were considered to have something wrong with them. Their inability to conform is considered insane, thus they are sent to the asylum. Because the men in the asylum were different, in their society they are looked down upon. “I indulged in certain practices that our society regards as shameful” (Kessey ).
The change in terminology symbolizes the idea that mental health does not imply that the individual is a lunatic. Rather, the term “hospital” shows a transition and acceptance of mental illness as a health problem. Individuals struggle with a variety of problems and the goal of the facility is not to confine or isolate these problems, but to help those in need of medical
Once deemed mentally ill by society, one no longer has the right to physical freedom. As seen in both texts, the patients are often confined to the hospital and physically bounded until they no longer can be envision as free. In One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, some of the patients are admitted under the pretense that they cannot decide when they leave. In this case, these patients have absolutely no voice in the matter of their confinement; except, they can change their situations if they conform “to policy merely to aid his chances of an
The treatment the patients received from the staff was sometimes inappropriate and rude. The nurses were disrespectful and impatient with them. Principally, the sleeping pills were forced to be drunk by everyone even though one might not need them. Additionally, their recreational activities were limited to the point that the patients felt it was like a prison. Susanna’s experience in this mental institution makes her realize that the staff was unable to look at each individual in its essence.
In the book Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen, one of the biggest focal points is mental illness. Mental illness can be tough to talk about, simply because the phrase “mental illness” encompasses such a wide range of conditions and conjures up images of deranged people, but it is very important, especially in this book. There is a certain stigma that people who are put into mental hospitals because they have medical problems or are insane and a possible danger to society. While this is sometimes true, it is far more common for patients to need help for a disorder, but just don’t know where to go or what to do, and can end up putting themselves or someone else in danger.
Shock therapy would eventually lead to her improvement, which would eventually to her release at the mental
