Mental Health Care

Paper Summary:

This paper explains (1) that the mental health of individuals is important to the overall well-being of the community and (2) that physical and mental illness are significantly influenced and possibly even created by the social conditions experienced by those afflicted. The author points out that institutionalization, which was the traditional means of treating or dealing with mental illness, has fallen out of favor in recent years, because many studies have revealed the potentially degrading nature and the lack of personalized care in these institutions. The paper stresses that the case management model, as opposed to the "one-stop" method of institutionalization, appears to provide a complete method of treating an individual's illness by encompassing the community influences and outside factors, which affect the mental condition of a patient.

From the Paper:

"Such policies could not heal the problems of institutionalized, individual-only treatment overnight, however. The funding demands of such communal treatments as well as the policy questions regarding which model of treatment could be most effective were and still are highly debated and contested. The need for empirical data in the area is still a significant one, especially with regard to which sorts of mental illness can be best addressed and which sorts of treatment and community models best do so."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Anderson, N., & Armstead, C. (1995). Toward understanding the association of socioeconomic status and health: A new challenge for the biopsychosocial approach. Psychosomatic Medicine, 57, 213-225.
• Link, B., & Phelan, J. (1995). Social conditions as fundamental causes of disease. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, pp. 80-94.
• Mancini, Michael. "Consumer-Providers' Theories about Recovery from Serious Psychological Disabilities," in Rosenberg, J. & Rosenberg, S. (2006). Eds: Community mental health: Challenges for the 21st century. New York, Routledge.
• McFarlane, W., Dunne, E., Lukens, E., Newmark, M., McLaughlin-Toran, J., Deakins, S., & Horan, B. (1993). From research to clinical practice: Dissemination of New York State's family psychoeducation project. Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 44(3), 265-270.
• Pescosolido, B., Wright, E., & Sullivan, W. (1995). Communities of care: A theoretical perspective on case management models in mental health. Advances in Medical Sociology (6), 37-79.

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