American Psychosis by Torrey E. Fuller

Author:Torrey, E. Fuller
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2014-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

7

DIMENSIONS OF THE PRESENT DISASTER: 2000–2013

In the fall of 1941, Joseph Kennedy arranged for his daughter Rosemary to have a lobotomy. He did so because she had become psychotic, was behaviorally out of control, and was in danger of becoming pregnant. The operation was a disaster, leaving Rosemary profoundly brain damaged. Twenty years later, Jack Kennedy assumed the presidency and authorized a new mental health and retardation program to honor his sister, although he never publicly acknowledged her connection to these programs. The program involved closing state psychiatric hospitals, shifting outpatient care to federally funded community mental health centers, and preventing mental illnesses. As implemented, the new federal program effectively lobotomized both the existing and the emerging state mental health programs. The federal program has been a disaster, and the current chaotic, dysfunctional mental health system is, in one sense, Rosemary’s baby.

It is important to recognize that this failed federal mental health program was not merely a one-time disaster. By aborting the development of emerging state systems and replacing them with a potpourri of uncoordinated federal programs, it set in motion an ongoing disaster that continues today. With each passing decade, the situation has become progressively worse, and it will continue to do so until corrective action is taken.

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