Beating the Mental Health Treatment Stigma

May 7, 2008— -- "…one flew east, one flew west,
one flew over the cuckoo's nest."

So starts the famous book chronicling our mental health system in the 1950s, best known for Jack Nicholson's portrayal of a sane but wild inmate in the Oscar-winning film adaptation. This pop culture phenomenon featured every possible psychiatric condition and outcome, including schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, use of mind-altering medications, forced lobotomies and suicide.

In my professional lifetime, people who had serious psychiatric diseases like schizophrenia and manic depression frequently ended up in asylums like this one.

Jump forward to the mid-1990s and the movie "A Beautiful Mind," which focused on the true-life story of John Nash, a schizophrenic who won the Nobel Prize in economics.

How was this possible? For him, it was a supportive work environment and a strong marriage.

Nash's story truly fits in with this year's Mental Health month theme — "Get Connected." Having a good relationship with family and co-workers is an important part of that connection.

Mental health has come a long way in the past generation. We have seen amazing advancements in the treatment options psychiatrists like me now utilize when treating patients.

In the 1950s, doctors began prescribing a new type of medication for patients with severe mental health issues. These antipsychotic medications gave us more choices and helped us better understand brain chemistry. The brain is a very complicated organ and we're just beginning to understand it. About one percent of the population has bipolar disorder, which causes dramatic mood swings with periods of normalcy in between. Schizophrenia affects 1 percent of the population as well. People with this disorder may hear voices, become paranoid, and go through periods of agitation and withdrawal.

I have a cousin whose son is schizophrenic. For years, the father and son had a terrible relationship; family members were embarrassed to have mental illness in their midst, and the son did not get proper care.