Discussion Board Assignment

Answer the following questions on Mental Health Services:

1. The recipients of mental health services in the U.S. represent only a small percentage of those in need of services. State two factors that impede access to mental illness treatment.

2. Name two ways WWI and WWII affected the awareness of mental health disorders among the federal government and the American public? Name one result of that awareness?

3. From colonial times through the 1960s, the primary mode of mental illness treatment was institutional. In the 1960s, mental health treatment shifted to a community-based orientation. Name two factors responsible for this shift? What were the effects on patients and on the community?

4. As mental illness treatment shifted from the institutional to the community setting, public dollars were allocated on the basis of units of service delivered, not on results of care. Discuss the implications of this policy on the deinstitutionalized severely mentally ill.

5. The author states, "In contrast to widely held assumptions, mental disorders can now be diagnosed and treated as effectively as physical disorders." Identify and discuss two factors that have contributed to the persistence of erroneous assumptions about mental illness treatment. Identify one factor that "allow mental disorders to be diagnosed and treated as effectively as physical disorders."