About a Classic Film..."One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.." .....

[Thunderbeast]

1. I loved the movie at the time...but...

It portrayed damaging stereotypes of mental health treatment and caregivers that persist today. It is a sad reality that there are some that suffer from brain disorders that can only be treated humanely in an institutional setting.

In order to "save" many of these patients, they were "released to community-based treatment". Most communities did not step up to build the clinics and group homes promised. Other priorities for local governments (stadiums, tax cuts, etc.) were more popular with voters.

You can see the results in the tent encampments on the streets of many of our cities. Those formerly hospitalized patients, unable to make safe choices, were left to "die with their rights on".

I am not defending the barbaric practices of some hospitals fifty years ago. Lobotomies were a disgraceful practice. Psychiatric practices have come a long way (but not far enough) since then. Medications and modern brain stimulation methods have helped many patients that were unable to escape their psychosis or depression.

Mental health treatment is seriously broken in this country. We used de-institutionalization as an excuse to neglect and ignore the severely mentally ill and hope they sleep on someone else's sidewalk or gutter.