How Does Schizophrenia Affect Society

Improved Essays
Schizophrenia in society
The general public have the fear of the ‘crazies’ breaking out of the psychiatric hospital, or the fear of encountering one of these mentally ill humans on the street. Is this fear justified? No. Due to the media portraying these human beings as mindless animals there is a view on them as ‘violent psycho’s who all need to be locked up’. Although there have been a number of high profile cases where people diagnosed with schizophrenia have committed serious crimes, the media manage to inflate these stories to make them into a front page headline full of stereotypes. This rallies up the public - that is striving for the acceptance of everyone- against the group of individuals with mental health conditions. All this does is imprint a constant brand on the forehead of these
…show more content…
This is evident when you see the unfairness in the spread of funding for mental health compared to general health. The hospitals are known to be very uncared for and the comparison on the amount they are understaffed is immense. Often there are only 2 nurses on a ward filled mentally ill people that need constant care. It seems that society is geared towards helping all people but helping those for whom there is a massive outcry for. A large percentage of people with schizophrenia don’t even look ill so society automatically turns off the need to care for these people even though their illness hinders their life in a way that no other illness does. It feels to me that society try and grade how they help ill people on how ill they look. You’ll often see massive media outcries for a young child with a temporary wound, people will share it outraged at how this could happen. Why never for a mentally ill person? Surely having a burden on your mind for the rest of your life is worse than something you can hop down to A&E for. So why isn’t it treated that

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In the article “Stigma of mental ill health is 'worse than the illness”, Jeremy Lawrence talks about how people who are mentally ill are becoming discriminated against by ordinary people and that not a lot of people are helping or paying close attention to these people who are in desperate need of help. The mentally ill people are stigmatized because their illness. This author claims that people are deviant due to their irrational behaviors in treating the mentally ill people without care or sensitivity. They are deviant because they are making the situation worse by comparing them to celebs, abusing them, and increasing the rate of the illness. Mentally people are being criticized and discriminated in a wrong way, which can…

    • 999 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Now in the 21st century mentally ill people our more accepted in society. Help is more accessible for the people that really need it. There is a bad side to what is going on today, the asylums and prisons are still overcrowded it. In the past the main point of having people in prison was for people to have time to reevaluate themselves and then be released once again, now it seems like that is not even important for prisoners to become better…

    • 527 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Analysis Of Anna Quindlen

    • 521 Words
    • 3 Pages

    No longer can victims be shut away in an institution, nor can they be subjected to barbaric lobotomies. Instead, Quindlen argues the health care and insurance industries must institute change in their approaches to the stigma of mental health…

    • 521 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Patients with mental illness are not always treated fairly and they are often taken advantage of. One of the patients that I was caring for recently had been not endorsing his bowel movement status for a whole week. He was refusing treatment…

    • 330 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Wire Hangers Analysis

    • 1416 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Instead of being seen as a person with a problem, people with mental illness are seen as comical and as outlandish as the cartoons and advertisements…

    • 1416 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The treatment of people with mental illnesses and handicaps has been a long lasting problem because of the misunderstandings of police, mental hospitals, and society. Many documentaries and movies have been made to show the lives lead in mental hospitals and institutions. News reports have talked about police shooting suspects who have been mentally ill. Most of these events could have been avoided if people could try and learn about mental illnesses, instead of hiding them away from the rest of the world. Just because they are physically or mentally different from the norm, society expects them to be maintained at an institution like dogs in a dog pound.…

    • 2391 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “How Mental Illness is misrepresented in the Media” I found this article very interesting not only did I learn something new but I learned something about myself and how I even have misconceptions about certain mental illnesses because of what I see on social media, television and even here on the news! This Article really caught my eye as I scrolled through U.S NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, in the health and psychology section. These are some key points of what I read and the opinion I have about them.…

    • 1240 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In this journal, Elbogen and Johnson study the relationship between mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, and violent committed acts. The researchers’ main purpose of studying this field was to clarify the, “public opinions about the dangerousness of people with psychiatric disorders.” (152). This particular study was done by looking at 2 different sets of data. The first set of data was conducted through interviewing over 43,000 people who would be more likely to struggle with abuse, like those in shelters, halfway houses, and motels.…

    • 274 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Additionally, as a society, we label mentally ill people. They are labeled as dangerous and violent. This leads for people to feel fear towards them. Another example from the video “The Released” mentally ill people would be trespassing someone’s house and the first thing these people would do is call the police. They don’t help them because they feel fear, and that is just cruel.…

    • 1026 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Homeless with Mental Illness It seems like majority of the homeless you see on the street day to day are suffering from some sort of mental illness. The stereotype of any mentally ill homeless person is schizophrenic, bi-polar or manically depressed. More than 124,000 – or one-fifth – of the 610,000 homeless people across the USA suffer from a severe mental illness, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. (Jervis, 2016) Why is it when you just look at as a whole that it seems very easy to fix or manage?…

    • 360 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    "Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike"- J.K Rowling. Human beings get discriminated against for being burdened with a mental illness. People do this without knowing the damage or harm the victims endure. Usually, people with a condition like this feel like they are the albatrosses of our society. Many diagnoses range from depression to schizophrenia.…

    • 505 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The second video “Imminent Danger” focused more on Schizophrenia and how most shootings are related with individuals who suffer with a mental illness. Many individuals with psychiatric disorders remain untreated although effective treatments exist. Most of the times, patients with mental illnesses face health insurance coverage discrimination for mental health services. In the past, asylums were built to house the mentally ill and the patients received little to no treatment. The care of people with mental and brain disorders is a growing public health concern.…

    • 123 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Five hundred thousand mentally ill people are in jail to this day in the US. People with mental health issues are treated unfairly in the criminal justice system, which must be addressed through increased education for the police and larger communities. The mentally ill do not get the same treatment as others do, the numbers may come by surprise. The mentally ill spend three times longer behind bars than those with similar charges (Kalson).…

    • 959 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mental Illness Essay

    • 837 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Once mental illness becomes a topic that every one has no problem talking about then the world should see a positive outcome. Mental…

    • 837 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Mental Health in South America When someone gets a broken bone or develops diabetes or cancer, it is obviously taken seriously by medical professionals, friends and family and treatment is encouraged and given. So why are mental disorders often denied the same level of concern? Mental illness is serious, and thousands of people commit suicide every year because of undiagnosed or improperly treated mental health disorders. In fact, an estimated 63,000 people commit suicide every year in the Americas alone (Cruz). There needs to be a serious change in the way the government treats those with these health problems and drastic action should be taken because death by suicide is completely preventable, yet it takes so many lives every year.…

    • 1768 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays