Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - Mental Health Care

[Rhiannon12866]

Last edited Mon Aug 1, 2022, 04:08 AM - Edit history (1)

John Oliver discusses the cracks in our broken mental health care system, some of the inadequate ways we’ve tried to fill them, and what it all has to do with the gallbladder.




And here's a "bootleg" version of the show which also contains John's initial comments on recent events - Europe's massive heatwave and a walrus causing chaos for Norway's boat owners. In addition, the tough sell to replace Boris Johnson and American newscasters daydreaming about winning the lottery. It won't last long, as usual:

[mopinko]

1. sadly can confirm every word. esp for adolescents.

my middle kid had a total breakdown in her teens. after seeing a therapist for almost 2 yrs, he wanted her on meds. i live in chi. there are probably more docs per capita here than anywhere but new york and boston.
the 1st guy she went to was semi-retired, but took her as a favor to her therapist. unfortunately, he was pretty incompetent, and he's the big reason she ended up in a psyche ward. we had to wait 3 MONTHS to get her into a better med doc.

we had very good insurance, but both her therapist and mine wouldnt file the ins for us.
and all for a field of medicine that is one step up from voodoo for the most part.

[Rhiannon12866]

8. I am so sorry. And I agree, meds are now seen as the solution for everything

They may help short term, but many have side effects, especially for young people, but that appears to be all that psychiatrists are consulted for these days.

[90-percent]

2. Frank Zappa's remarkable prescience, once again

Enjoy, fellow well informed critical thinkers.

-90% Jimmy

[burrowowl]

3. K&R

[Warpy]

4. Mentalhealth has slways been the orphan stepchild of medicine

Last edited Mon Aug 1, 2022, 04:06 PM - Edit history (1)

Because it was treated as a moral issue for hundreds and hundreds of years, a matter of choice for the sick, treating it is really in its infancy in many ways. People were systematically abused, especially by the church, chained and beaten for things that were completely out of their control. We're doing the same damned things now when we incarcerate people for mental issues that make them so frightened all the time they have tended to lash out at people who come too close. Then they wonder why people are afraid to ask for help.

I remember those state facilities, I worked in one. I worked with women, and fully half the women in that hospital were there because no one wanted them any more, a husband being the only one who was left to sign them out and he'd moved on to somebody else, sucks to be her. Those women could have and should have been discharged, reducing the load on the system. Instead, they chucked everybody out and then refused to fund or staff the community centers to replace the system.

Then there's the drug war, standing in the way of research into medications that might have a chance of treating things like refractory depression, PTSD, and addictions.

Just consider that the brain is the only organ of the body that's treated like a moral issue when something goes wrong with it.

Got a mental health problem? Snap out of it. Ask Jesus for help. Sucks to be you.

[Rhiannon12866]

5. Mary Trump said the same thing in her second book. And she's a clinical psychologist.

[Warpy]

6. I'm not a clinical psychologist

and I might be blind, but I saw right through her Uncle Donny, probably faster than she did. Then again, I'm older than she is and I've had more time to hate his guts.

still, it's nice to know great minds think alike.

[Rhiannon12866]

7. He has been horrific to her, disinherited both Mary and her brother after their father died

Mary's father died when she was in high school. He actually attempted to disinherit his remaining siblings, too, until their mother found out, he's that desperate for money. But the worst of all was when he canceled the family's lifetime health insurance for Mary and her brother right after her brother and his wife had a disabled baby who required round-the-clock nursing to keep him alive.