Mental Health Facilities

Paper Summary:

This paper mentions a number of fictional books as references for the terrible reputation given to most mental asylums today. The first book is "Asylum" by Erving Goffman, which talks about the plight of the patients housed in these places. The second book is "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey. The writer comments that both these books were written at a time when there was little control over state-run mental homes, and improvements have since been made. The writer looks at the hierarchy that exists between patients and caregivers.

From the Paper:

"Ken Kesey tells the story of a petty criminal who decides that life in an asylum would be preferable to a prison work farm and manages to have the authorities agree that he needs to be "evaluated". He enters the world of the mentally ill and finds that these are very human individuals hidden in shells that serve to protect them from the outside world and from the abuses of power that exist within the walls of the institution. The story is centered on the conflict (power struggle) between the head nurse and the newly arrived prisoner cum mental patient, Randal McMurphy."

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