In five pages the evolution of the mental health care system since the middle 1850s is examined with the Kalamazoo Asylum case study that ponders the historical circumstances of inadequacies and why such facilities and should be abolished despite the continued existence of a few across the United States. There are six bibliographic sources cited.
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The world of American psychiatry and the people impacted by that world, both the mentally ill and the rest of society who is charged with defining that illness
and deciding how to react to it, is a complex realm of historic circumstance and public policy. The Kalamazoo Asylum for the Insane is one of the first mental
health institutions established in this country. The facility received its first patients in 1859 (MichiganInBrief.org, 1998). The facility was established as a result of the concern for caring
for people with mental disabilities which was expressed in the 1850 Michigan Constitution (MichiganInBrief.org, 1998). The facility was viewed as a reflection of enlightened public policy (MichiganInBrief.org, 1998).
The early history the facility, however, is one which reflects many injustices and inadequacies. Over time, however, facilities such as this have been abolished and replaced with community-based treatment
programs which more adequately address the needs of the mentally ill population. Prior to the establishment of facilities such that the Kalamazoo Asylum,
care for the mentally ill fell to a persons family and the degree of care consequently varied tremendously. The mentally ill were sometimes locked away in unsanitary conditions or
exposed to even harsher treatment. This situation was not to improve substantially, however, even with the establishment of the Kalamazoo facility. The practices in the facility, although viewed
as acceptable then, verged on barbarity. This history reveals a number of relevant facts about mental illness and the mechanisms which have been put in place to deal with
it, however. Susan Estroffs "Making It Crazy: An Ethnography of Psychiatric Clients in an American Community" reminds the reader of an analogy