How have individuals with mental illness been treated historically and what are their experiences today? This book investigates the historical and contemporary forms of discrimination faced by those with mental illness.
This book provides a broad foundation on the history of mental illness and discrimination as well as the current treatment network and contemporary issues related to mental illness and discrimination. It presents a historical overview of the treatment of mental illness from the pre-asylum movement through the current system, identifying both overt and covert discrimination. It is an ideal resource for high school and college students researching how people with mental illness have experienced discrimination throughout history as well as for social justice advocates or professionals who work with persons with mental illness.
Discrimination against the Mentally Ill reviews how persons with mental illness have been treated across time, exploring the impact of various forms of discrimination and how other contemporary issues relate to mental illness, including diversity, homelessness, veteran affairs, and criminal justice. The work includes primary source materials—historical and contemporary, from the United States and other nations—that serve to augment readers’ understanding of the topic and foster development of critical thinking and research skills.
Features
- Provides a valuable resource for researching the hot topic of discrimination and injustice against a group of individuals—one that is often overlooked by society as well as by reference books
- Supplies annotated primary sources that will serve to improve readers' research and critical reasoning skills
- Examines the role the media has played in discriminatory practices towards mental illness
- Explores several contemporary issues related to mental illness—including diversity, comorbidity, homelessness, veterans, and the criminal justice system—and their intersection with discrimination
Monica A. Joseph, PhD, is adjunct lecturer at Columbia School of Social Work, New York, NY, and assistant professor in the Behavioral Sciences and Human Services Department at Kingsborough Community College of the City University of New York, Brooklyn, NY. She has a wealth of policy, managerial, and clinical experience providing services to persons with mental illness and other disabilities, within residential and outpatient treatment settings. As a qualified surveyor for the Commission on the Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF), Joseph conducts international accreditation surveys that focus on ensuring quality behavioral health care, including for persons with co-occurring disorders.
Reviews
"Readers of this book will learn a great deal about the policies that have reflected, promoted, and perpetuated discrimination against people with mental illnesses."—PsycCRITIQUES, November 17, 2016
"Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and graduate students; professionals."—Choice, December 1, 2016
"Having written with lucidity, the book has an attractive way of discussing one of the thoughtful medico-social issues with the help of various definitions, examples, situations, controversies, and various Acts aligned with the issue. The flow of content across the book is excellent, quickly readable, and easily understandable. The book is useful for any researcher dealing with ethical vis-à-vis unethical issues surrounded around the discrimination against the persons with mental illness. It is said so because along with providing an extensive and holistic view of the issue, the author has furnished the critical resources which will enable the researcher to go beyond what the author has tried to achieve through the book."—Metapsychology Online Review, March 27, 2018
Health and Medical Issues Today
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The series Health and Medical Issues Today provides just such one-stop resources for those seeking solid overviews of the most controversial and persisting issues in health and psychology. Each volume offers a balanced, in-depth introduction to the medical, scientific, legal, and cultural aspects of subjects ranging from obesity to sports medicine, mental illness, HIV/AIDS, and tobacco use.
