Typically upbeat and bland, MH =is= somewhat informative, "Fred" (the patient shown with the clinical psychologist and his assistants) =is= properly paranoid, and the almost wholly discarded treatments of the time =are= realistically presented in the era pre-dating the advent of Thorazine and the other, first-generation "major tranquilizers" we now call "anti-psychotics."
But the film is utterly unrepresentative of the interpersonal behavior between patients in present-day mental hospitals, as well as the degree and percentage of successful treatment and symptom remission. Dances? Softball games? Religious services? Work in hospital departments? Not now, folks.
Ya see, everything changed when Thorazine, Lithium, Nardil and the other early psych meds made it possible for the "Freds" of the world to be treated far less expensively in "partial day" programs or even weekly visits to a "shrink." Mental hospitals emptied out, and politicians looking for budget reductions (Ronald Reagan was one of the foremost during his turn as governor of California) loved it.
Fast forward 65 years: Take a stroll downtown. (And I'm not taking about downtown Delhi.) Have a look around at the folks sitting on the sidewalks with a hat or a basket in front of them. They're almost always medicated (one way or another). And they usually get some disability, but it's not enough to live any sort of what you or I would call a "life."
And the ones who're hospitalized now in long-term residential care are those whose suffering defies medication or even modern-day, low-amperage electric shock... along with those whose psychosis is so intractable that allowing them out on the street would be intolerable to your local police chief.
But, insofar as the "system" is concerned, they're all "fixed." Hey! "Mission accomplished!"
But the film is utterly unrepresentative of the interpersonal behavior between patients in present-day mental hospitals, as well as the degree and percentage of successful treatment and symptom remission. Dances? Softball games? Religious services? Work in hospital departments? Not now, folks.
Ya see, everything changed when Thorazine, Lithium, Nardil and the other early psych meds made it possible for the "Freds" of the world to be treated far less expensively in "partial day" programs or even weekly visits to a "shrink." Mental hospitals emptied out, and politicians looking for budget reductions (Ronald Reagan was one of the foremost during his turn as governor of California) loved it.
Fast forward 65 years: Take a stroll downtown. (And I'm not taking about downtown Delhi.) Have a look around at the folks sitting on the sidewalks with a hat or a basket in front of them. They're almost always medicated (one way or another). And they usually get some disability, but it's not enough to live any sort of what you or I would call a "life."
And the ones who're hospitalized now in long-term residential care are those whose suffering defies medication or even modern-day, low-amperage electric shock... along with those whose psychosis is so intractable that allowing them out on the street would be intolerable to your local police chief.
But, insofar as the "system" is concerned, they're all "fixed." Hey! "Mission accomplished!"