What are causes of too many mental patients in USA?

Question

My son-in-law is currently in last year of his fellowship specializing in Psychiatric Medicine. He says that AMA has announced that America needs 100,000 M. D's specializing in Psychiatric Medicine

Answer 1

High lead levels in China made products!

Answer 2

According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the resident population of the United States, projected to 11/02/07 at 22:59 GMT (EST+5) is
303,274,000

However, did your son tell you exactly how many mentally ill people are there? You have posted the doctors needed.

Perhaps the problem is that not enough people want to be psychiatrists and psychologists.

What is the standard for what is "enough" or "too many?"

Another problem is how to define who or what is the mentally ill and mental illness, respectively. Then there are many people who do not wish to admit to this, for shame, for fear of what others will say to ridicule or shame or stigmatize them. So we really do not know how many people are mentally ill, whether this be in the US, in Great Britain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Syria, or anywhere else for that matter.

In the Soviet Union, if they don't like your politics, the government will have you labelled mentally ill, then institutionalized, kept under lock and key, watched and listened to for anything you say which can be purported to be the product of mental illness. There is some fear that this is beginning to happen in some communities in the US, namely, liberal institutions of higher learning such as Knox College.

There has been more success in determining how many mentally ill (classified) are in certain prison systems, in hospitals, or even an estimation of how many are in populations of homeless. Yet how would we determine how many mentally ill are in the middle class, or in the upper class? People who live in houses with thick walls and vast lawns can easily hide their eccentricities (what more established or successful people call mentall illness).

Today we are discovering new categories of mental illness, such as Asberger's and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Maybe some day such phenomena as racism and bigotry will be categorized as mental illness.

Maybe the Koran will tells us what we need to know. Let us keep searching for the answer. We shall find it, insh'Allah.

Answer 3

1) Drug and alcohol abuse.
2) Loss of the extended family.
3) Stress.
4) Poor nutrition.
5) Trauma and abuse.
6) Parental neglect.
7) Increased demands of urban society.
8) Not enough effective out-patient care and total reliance on
psychotropic medication for treatment.

Answer 4

Well there's certainly lots of causes for mentally ill.. For starters some of it is genetic. Some of it can be related to accidents or medications or DNA. There's no "cure" for most types of MRDD or retardation only meds to slow it down or mask/help the symptoms. So, we definetly need to start having more doctors trying to "unlock" genetic codes and research the causes of mental illnesses/defects and such...

Answer 5

war, poverty, poverty even though you work,death,substance abuse,domestic abuse, depression, bipolar, docs saying got a problem take a pill instead of dealing with the patients issues. this list could go on forever. your son in law is basically set for life with his career choice.

Answer 6

i have ocd, anxiety disorders and severe pesonality disorders, all brought on by the pressure of todays society and how everyone has to be ''perfect'' and ''normal'', i love being different, it makes me unique

Answer 7

Hmmmm, I'm not so sure, I take meds, but it's for my bipolarness.

Answer 8

Drugs.

Answer 9

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