Mental illness: a focus on the most severe mental illnesses
Draw on what you have learned in the module to explain what a “severe” mental illness is.
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Explain the difference between the “severe” or “serious” mental illnesses and other mental illnesses.
What makes a mental illness “severe”?
What is known about the proportion of the population with severe mental illness?
Draw on what you have learned in this module to describe and explain the American system for treating severe mental illness.
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Explain what factors produced this system. Why did it emerge?
Explain how and why the current system can make a mental illness worse and make its symptoms more severe.
Describe what you have learned about the amount and kind of treatment available in the US for people with serious mental illness. (What kind of treatment do they get? Where do they get it? What are the problems with it?)
Everyone agrees that the current system is inadequate, but what should be done? Drawing on what you’ve studied in this unit, identify at least two different points of view on what should be done to make the system better. Explain what has been suggested as a reform and why it is being suggested.
Conclude by explaining your personal position on what should be done. Explain why you take this position.
Requirements: you must use The New Asylums in your post; you should cite at least three other items from the module (TED talk, lecture, articles).
I have given you a few files that you can draw from and here is the link to “The New Asylums” Documentary which you may or may not use in the essay. At the end it asks for personal opinion. This part can be omitted if the writer wishes, but if you feel inclined to include your position than by all means do so.
