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Jordan Jeorge
Mrs.Goodman
English 10
12/3/13
The Right Method to Help Treatment Resistant Mentally Ill Individuals
While living with schizophrenia, Rodger's parents Roger and Rae Belle, begged mental
health professionals and the courts in San Luis Obispo county to enforce treatment for their son
Rodger, but was denied due to the laws supporting Rodgers decision to receive treatment or not
for his mental illness. In 1998 Rodger stole two of his father's guns and "armed" himself against
the "blood-sucking vampires" he said lived in their backyard which then lead to felony charges
that then qualified Rodger for hospitalization. While Rodgers parents are relieved to hear that
their son is finally receiving treatment for his mental illness, they are not pleased that the health
system in the county allowed their son to go untreated for such a long time and that the only way
to force their son to get treated was to call the police on him and charge him for a crime that was
the countys fault, because they let him go untreated for so long. You dont have to become a
criminal to be treated for a heart attack. Roger.
Mental illness is common all over the world. In any given year in the United States,
26.2% of adults (one out of four adults) will suffer from a diagnosed mental illness (source).
Among those mental illness Anxiety reaching up to 40,000,000 (18.1%) of American adults, is
the most common mental illness in the United States and the most common mental disability in
children and adolescents is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) reaching up to 9%
of children and adolescents ages 13 through 18; boys being four times at risk than girls. In the
United States 33,300 people in 2006 died
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by committing suicide. Of the 33,300 people 90% of them had a diagnosable mental
illness/disorder and of the 33,300 people caucasian males above the age of 85 years old had the
highest suicide rates in the United States in 2006.
While looking at the rates of the occurrence of mental illnesses/disorders in the
population of the United States in both adults and children, you can see how many people suffer
from their mental illness/disorder and get treatment for it versus how many people suffer and
choose to commit suicide. Not receiving treatment for a mental illness can lead to devastating
results that involve both not only you but the people around you. Making the right decision of
choosing to receive treatment is very important regarding recovery.
Many people choose not to receive treatment for their mental illness/disorder due to
many definable and understandable reasons, such as medication/therapeutic expansives, fear of
misdiagnosis and the treatment one will receive, denial of ones symptoms of a mental
illness/disability, doubt of recovery,and a long history of trauma, abuse, neglect, and failure to
recover. In many counties, there are laws that support and protect the patients choice of whether
or not they want to receive treatment for their mental illness/disorder and there are many that
have laws that enforce the mentally ill into treatment due to their inability to survive without
supervision and provide their own food, clothing or shelter. In the past and hopefully in the
future, counties, cities etc, have created laws and policies that have been created to improve
treatment for the mentally ill and to prevent tragic events from happening. An example of some
policies that were created were the set of policies that were created in Maine to improve
treatment and prevent tragic events from happening that were created by the Maine Department
of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), due to an event that took place six years before
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the creation of this set of policies. While enforcing treatment upon others strips away someones
civil liberties, its the only way for mentally ill patients that resist treatment to recover and get
back up on their feet. Giving the patients the choice to receive treatment or not can endanger the
patients and the people around them. While treatment is important, focusing on recovery,
reasonably working with the patient, and gaining a trust with the patient is just as important as
treatment. When reading this, people who know a friend or family member who needs treatment
for their mental illness ,but yet chooses not to receive treatment for their mental illness, should
seldom think about the fact that if your friend or family member does not receive treatment for
their mental illness they will not get better and that they will not get better unless treatment is
enforced upon them in order for them to recover from their mental illness.
In the United States, 26.2% of people have been diagnosed with a mental illness. Many of
these mental illnesses are incurable, but many can be treated with medication or therapy. While
some patients may have the same mental illness, every patient with the same mental illness will
have a wide range of symptoms that vary from patient to patient. Along with the symptoms with
each mental illness, the medication works differently from person to person, making it harder to
find the right medication that suites each patient. Finding the right medication for each patient
and the cost for all the medication, many patients with the incurable mental illness will choose
not to receive any form of medication or treatment and will become resistant toward treatment.
While becoming resistant toward treatment and any form of medication is never the right idea,
many of the patients who chose not to receive treatment have definable and understandable
reasons to why they chose not to receive treatment. Many of the reasons include the cost and the
time it takes to find the right medication and or therapy, the fear of
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finding out that there is no treatment for your mental illness and the fear of the treatment that you
will receive, being too proud or not admitting that anything is wrong and not going to the doctor
or a therapist for help, doubt that any form of treatment will help with your mental illness, and a
long history of trauma, abuse, neglect, and failure to recover.
While for most treatment plans medication is the most important part of recovery, the
cost for healthcare and prescriptions itself could kill a person. Programs such as Medicare,
Medicaid, and Childrens Health Insurance (CHIP), have healthcare coverages and prescription
drug coverages that do not cover all patients, but a solution to that would be to create better
programs that would cover a wider range of different patients. This solution is important,
because while there are many reasons to why people do not receive treatment for their mental
illness, the cost for medication and healthcare itself is one of the main reasons to why people
choose not to receive treatment and creating programs that assist with the cost of healthcare and
medication would allow all patients, no matter poor or rich, to receive treatment for their mental
illness. In 2006, 36.2 million adult Americans paid a total of $1,591 for mental health services;
totaling up to $57.5 billion. The cost for mental health services for an average child were $1,931;
which totaled up to $8.9billion for 4.6 million children. Out of all the payments made toward
treatment and mental health services, Medicare (being one source out of seven shown on the
Mental Health payment bar graph shown at
[http://www.nimh.nih.gov/statistics/4MH_PAYER2003.shtml]) pays 2.6% compared to Out-of-
Pocket payments which pays for 6.2%. No matter how rich or poor a patient is, all patients
deserve to receive the right kind of treatment that suits their needs and requirements; having that
said, creating programs that would cover a wider range of different patients without
qualifications would allow
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everyone to receive treatment for their mental illness.
While Schizophrenia and Bipolar are scary words to hear while seeing your doctor, being
misdiagnosed for a potential deadly/life changing disease,disorder, or disability is even scarier
and can make you more hesitant towards treatment. Educating the public about diseases and
disabilities and seeing the doctor more often are important towards preventing treatment for a
misdiagnosed disease or mental illness; but preventing misdiagnosis (despite the fact that were
in the 21st century and that technology today is at its highest its ever been) is almost impossible
for your doctor to do, but not impossible for you to do. Keeping track of all the tests your doctor
gives you and even keeping track of your symptoms is important when you want to get the right
diagnosis from your doctor. In developing countries, 15% of medical cases are misdiagnosed and
26% of medical cases internationally are misdiagnosed. Of the $2.7 trillion spent in the U.S. on
healthcare, of it is wasted money that was used on misdiagnosed patients. This solution being
that educating the public about diseases and disabilities and keeping track of your medical
history, could work with my previous solution to creating programs that could cover a wider
range of different patients, by educating the public about healthcare itself. Educating the public
about disabilities and disorders is important to preventing misdiagnoses, because once the public
could understand the symptoms they have they could agree or disagree with their doctor about
whether or not their symptoms are symptoms of a disease or disability.
When the mentally ill resist treatment and are a danger to themselves and everyone
around them, the goal of enforcing treatment upon them isnt to strip away their civil liberty, but
to protect the public and most importantly the individual themselves, because it isnt the patient
who is dangerous its their disability. Creating these laws that would enforce the mentally ill into
treatment is important for the
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patients and the publics safety. Since 2002, Christine Bissonnette like other mentally ill people
had been off and on treatment for her mental illness and had been convicted of assault along with
multiple brushes with the law. On February 6 in Maine, Christine Bissonnette burned her
house down and was ordered by the court to receive treatment for her mental illness; which
showed that in Maine in order for her to receive treatment for her mental illness she would have
to commit a crime. This solution will work with previous solutions by creating laws that would
enforce the mentally ill into receiving treatment for their mental illness. Creating these laws are
important to preventing treatment resistance by both protecting the patients and the public and
allowing the patients to recover instead of letting them live by themselves where they could not
acquire their own food, shelter, and clothing and where they are unlikely to survive.
Those who resist treatment for their mental illness, endanger others including themselves.
If the choice of receiving treatment for ones mental illness involves others, the public should
have a say about whether or not the patient should receive treatment based off of evidence that
proves or does not prove whether or not the patient is deemed unlikely to survive without
supervision. Holding a person against his or her will without a timely evaluation and release is,
and should be by all standards, illegal. However the laws, that would be created to enforce
treatment upon the mentally ill will not hold patients unfairly, but allow the patients who resist
treatment to give their testimony, be present during the hearing, and appeal to the commitment
individually or with counsel. The decision to release the patient or to extend the treatment for the
patient will be decided by the judge; along with a court review that is made to ensure that the
patient is not being held against their will indefinitely within a locked facility. Many others
believe that a plan like this is absurd and that enforcing treatment upon the mentally ill is wrong
and that
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instead of it being dangerous for the patient not to receive treatment it is dangerous for the
patient to be enforced by the law to receive treatment; and that instead of enforcing treatment
upon the mentally ill, the choice of freely accepting or denying treatment would be the right
method to use when approaching such an issue like this. Critics that argue against forced
treatment, are incorrect about the right method to use when helping the mentally ill that are
resistant to treatment, because if the mentally ill cannot survive without supervision and they
cannot provide their own food, clothing, or shelter, then they are a danger to themselves and
others around them. The only way for the mentally ill to recover is to receive treatment upon
their own standards and needs. In 1998, Russell Weston Jr 42, suffering from unmedicated
Schizophrenia, shot and killed two Police officers in Washington D.C. he is now facing the death
penalty for murdering the two men. Creating laws that would force the mentally ill into treatment
based off of their inability to survive without supervision and provide their own food, clothing,
and shelter, is the most humane way to resolve this issue of treatment resistant mentally ill
patients. It is better to overlook their civil liberties as citizens of the United States than to
endanger the public. Creating such laws will protect the patient and the public, provide recovery
for the mentally ill, and get 30% of the homeless population off the streets and into recovery.
Such an issue like this, brings up many questions about what method is the right method
to use when helping the treatment resistant mentally ill. Many people believe that the act of
enforcing treatment upon the mentally ill is unlawful and wrong, while many others believe that
doing so is a more humane act than letting the choice to receive treatment be turned down and
for the public and the patient to be put in danger, because of this decision. Many others also
believe that such solutions stated before to reassure the mentally ill to receive treatment, are
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preposterous and will never work to encourage the mentally ill to receive treatment for their
mental illness. Making the decision upon whether or not a patient should have the choice of
deciding upon whether or not they should receive treatment based off of the evidence that shows
whether or not they need hospitalization for their mental illness, is very important. Creating a set
of laws that would enforce the mentally ill into treatment, would lead to recovery and the
expulsion of 30% of the homeless population off the streets and back up onto their feet. Without
such justful laws, the mentally ill and the public would be endangered by such a decision that the
public should have say upon. The research that I presented in this essay shows statistics that
displayed the overall cost estimates of medication, the estimated percent of people living with a
diagnosed mental illness, the suicidal rates among the mentally ill, many of the commonly
related symptoms among nearly all of the mental illnesses, and many stories of people suffering
from their mental illness shared by families and friends of the mentally ill. Now that you have
read my essay, I would like you to not look at what I have just written, but to what you know
about ethics, and think about which one of the methods that I mentioned earlier is ethical and
which is unethical; and once you have made a decision about which is ethical and which is
unethical I want you to save this answer and in the future look back at your answer and make the
same decision again and see if your answer has changed over time.





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