One in Ten Americans suffers from some form of mental illness.
Brother, wife, mother, son, or neighbor, someone you know, someone you love, maybe you yourself. Our response as a society has been increasingly fragmented. Thirty years ago, the mentally ill, the visibly mentally ill, were locked up and over-medicated. Then, when warehousing was deemed unacceptable and the hospitals shut, thousands of untreated mentally ill wound up on the streets. To suffer a mental illness today is to play a game of chance between doctors, health care programs, and statistics that favor either the wealthy or those lucky enough to have a caregiver who stays involved.
The Connection looks into what happens when a system is in crisis, and what the mentally ill themselves are doing bout that crisis.
(Hosted by Jacki Lyden)
Guests:
Dr. Allan Hobson, professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Paul Appelbaum President-elect of the American Psychiatric Association and Professor of psychiatry at University of Massachusetts Medical School
Mo Armstrong A person with schizophrenia who is now working for Vinfen Coorporation, a mental health agency. He is on the National Board of National Alliance for the Mentally Ill
Dr. Laurie Young Senior Vice President of the National Mental Health Association