Madness in the streets : how psychiatry and the law abandoned the mentally ill

Simply blaming the process of "deinstitutionalization" has been a convenient shorthand to explain away the tragedy of how thousands of mentally ill people were committed to life on the streets. Such a one-dimensional view fails, however, to deal with the deep and powerful cultural and political forces that caused deinstitutionalization and continue to keep us from confronting and ending this disgrace to our society. Madness in the Streets is the first book to identify the astounding social and political delusions which justified ignoring the needs of the mentally ill. In the 1960s, a national fashion for casting off all forms of what was perceived as "oppression" found its perfect target in the psychiatric establishment. Mental illness did not exist, its critics claimed: it was only a "label" for people perceived as "different." Such illness as there was could be treated in the community. The psychiatric establishment accepted these misguided and untested notions, and now our society offers no real response to people in need of help. During the same period, the national enthusiasm for a civil rights approach to all social problems produced a body of case law which has made it impossible to give medical help to anyone without their consent, no matter how desperately their families and others know it is needed to protect them--and others. Efforts to "free" the mentally ill received the full support of the courts, where judges ruled repeatedly that the patient's "rights" took precedence over all other considerations. In effect, the right to refuse treatment replaced the right to receive treatment. A short walk through any American community today reveals the utter failure of these policies. Our sidewalks and parks have become open-air mental wards--but without treatment for their inmates. It is too easy to call this population "homeless," for the hard truth is that affordable housing, even if available, does not treat mental illness. Isaac and Armat's devastating account shows compellingly that we must reverse thirty years of pretending that mental illness does not exist if this shame of our society is to be ended. --Adapted from dust jacket In The 1960's Mental Hospitals Were Seen As Oppressing People Who Were Not Really Ill, Just Different. As A Result These People Have Gone Without Needed Treatment And Make Up A Large Portion Of The Homeless. Introduction: Shame Of The Streets -- Pt. 1. Anti-psychiatry -- Pt. 2. Vision Of Community Care -- Pt. 3. Law Becomes Deranged -- Pt. 4. War Against Treatment -- Pt. 5. Families As Mental Institutions -- Pt. 6. Mentally Ill In The Community. Rael Jean Isaac, Virginia C. Armat. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 349-414) And Index.