The United States also went through the process of deinstitutionalization of psychiatric patients in the 1970s. The results have been mixed. On one hand person’s diagnosis with mental illness live in less restrictive environments. On the other deinstitutionalization resulted in a nationwide increase in homelessness.
A salient feature of the approach to mental illness in America is the right to refuse treatment. This means that people with no insight into their own mental state are free to deny treatment and intervention only occurs when the person becomes an overt threat to themselves or others. The most dramatic consequences of this can be seen in cases where the mentally ill commit mass murder–a problem which is epidemic in the United States.
Going along with this is the underfunding of mental health treatment. The quality of care that people get if they get any is related to what they or their insurance company can pay for. The absence of universal healthcare is a huge factor in this equation in the United States.
The public treatment of mental illness usually consists of little more than psychotropic medication and perfunctory interviews to manage medication intake. The poor usually have no access to those psychotherapies which has been shown to be most efficacious in controlled studies.
I practiced psychotherapy from 1986 to 1992. What I described above was the state of psychiatric care at that time. I don’t see that it is improved significantly since then. Persons with mental illness still make up a large percentage of the people living in the street in the city where I live.
Anyway, mental illness is part of human experience. Part of everyone’s experience to some degree. And insofar as we are spiritual beings mental illness is spiritual. The myth of spirit and demon possession morphed historically into the myth of the medical model. Is the latter better?
To answer one looks to one’s own experience. Or to the experience of mental health clients. Or to the experience of their families friends and work associates. Their understanding of the science varies. But they know their experience.
To me de-pathologizing has the effect of breaking the tight boxes of psychiatric diagnosis and placing them into the bell-shaped curve of human experience where you and I and everyone else is situated. As a wise man once said nothing human is alien to me. Recognition of our common humanity is essential to the experience of a sense of wholeness.
Thomas Moore’s ability to differentiate soulical and spiritual experience phenomenologically is remarkable. I recently enjoyed his book “Soul Mates : Honoring the Mysteries of Love and Relationship”.
Here’s a relevant paragraph from that book:
A soulful relationship offers two difficult challenges: one, to come to know oneself–the ancient Oracle of Apollo; and two, to get to know the deep, often subtle richness in the soul of the other. Giving attention to one side usually helps the other. As you get to know the other deeply, you will discover much about yourself. Especially in moments of conflict and maybe even despair, being open to the demands of a relationship can provide an extraordinary opportunity for self-knowledge. It provides an occasion to glimpse your own soul and notice its longings and its fears. And as you get to know yourself, you can be more accepting and understanding of the others depth of soul.