Mental Health: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

mental illness the thing actors pretend to have in order to win oscars now in real life mental health can be something of a touchy topic we don't like to talk about it much and as one psychiatrist explains when we do we don't talk about it well stigma still is a very big issue it manifests itself in the ways that we think and talk about the the mentally ill and in the terms the words that we use to describe them for instance wacko psycho cray-cray okay okay first hearing a bearded middle-aged man used the term cray-cray may have already killed that word forever it's like when your mom says something is on fleek it's done it's just over at that point but second he is right cray cray is a terrible name to call someone with mental illness although it is an excellent name for a cartoon crayfish who just won a scuttling contest you did it cray cray you won the race the point is we don't don't we don't talk about mental illness well sometimes even tv personalities with doctor in their names can get it disastrously wrong on the next dr oz everybody wants to know am i normal or nuts should you be worried this behavior is it's not normal have you gone completely insane i mean sir have you gone completely insane completely insane people go outside suck on a rock and bark at the moon what the is wrong with you sucking on a rock and barking at the moon is not a sign that someone's mentally ill it's a sign that they are a wolf with an iron deficiency you're thinking of anemic wolves dr phil you're getting confused but perhaps the clearest sign of just how little we want to talk about mental health is that one of the only times it's actively brought up is as we've seen yet again this week in the aftermath of a mass shooting as a means of steering the conversation away from gun control this isn't guns this is about really mental illness in many of these shootings we have people who have mental disturbances do we need to do a better job in mental health you bet we do yeah it seems there is nothing like a mass shooting to suddenly spark political interest in mental health although it's worth noting that governor huckabee's state got a grade of d minus on mental health care while he was in office and you can't lecture people on something you've got a d-minus in it's like passionately delivering a speech on proper english grammar by saying we need to thunk better about how we does word stuff we need to get it did and the aftermath of a mass shooting might actually be the worst time to talk about mental health because for the record the vast majority of mentally ill people are non-violent and the vast majority of gun violence is committed by non-mentally ill people in fact mentally ill people are far likely to be the victims of violence rather than the perpetrators so the fact we tend to only discuss mental health in a mass shooting context is deeply misleading it would be like if the only time we talked about coca-cola it were in the context of this i'm standing here with this ice-cold thirst-quenching deliciously satisfying coca-cola and it actually tastes better now more than ever coke is it sure sure that happened and coke was undeniably involved in it but most cans of coke are not that one and it would be unfair if every time you thought of coke you thought of that but if now is our only opportunity to have a public discussion about mental health then perhaps we should do it because in 2013 an estimated 43.8 million american adults dealt with a mental illness and an estimated 10 million of us suffer from a serious mental illness each year 10 million that's almost as many people as live in greece and most of us know a lot more about greece than we know about our mental health system think about it you know at least three things about greece its economy is collapsing yani's from there and greek yogurt tastes like the ice cream they make in a town where dancing is illegal you know at least three and when you look at how our current system deals with severe mental illness you'll quickly realize it's a mess and it always has been we used to lock people up in asylums which were often so bad they were known as snake pits and that doesn't sound like an attractive place to live even if you're a snake you'd want some kind of snake loft or snake bungalow i don't know i'm no real a snake agent and and then and then and then in the 1960s president kennedy signed a bill to try and close as many of those asylums as possible under this legislation custodial mental institutions will be replaced by therapeutic centers it should be possible within a decade or two to reduce the number of patients and mental institutions by 50 or more and that was a really good idea because when you see horrible places doing unspeakable things to people you are supposed to try and shut them down that's why there are so few quiznos left but but before you get too proud of the fact that we shut those snake pits down it turns out we never followed through and properly funded the community mental health centers jfk had wanted to replace them all of those patients had to go somewhere and some of the places they wound up are shocking for instance a few years ago the ap found that nearly 125 000 young and middle-aged mental health patients were being placed in nursing homes and it's not a great idea to just stick a young person in with some old people and then hope for the best it's like casting taylor lautner in the new best exotic marigold hotel movie it's unsuitable for everybody involved in it and some states have been involved in something called greyhound therapy and unfortunately that does not mean getting to hug a trembling dog who's 98 bone and gristle it's an even worse kind of greyhound the kind with four wheels and a broken toilet this is ross and neal the only state-run psychiatric hospital in southern nevada ross and neil has been accused of greyhound therapy a practice critics call unthinkable discharging seriously ill patients too soon then supplying them with a one-way bus ticket out of town i'm sorry but you cannot just put people you'd rather not see on a bus to another city if you could that's how every breakup would end look look greta it's not you it's me but on the other hand i think you're going to really enjoy your new life in syracuse and we have not even got into the most depressingly common place that people with mental illnesses can end up two million people with mental illness go to state and local jails every year that's meant there's now ten times more people behind bars than in state funded psychiatric treatment that is terrible finding out jails are our largest provider of mental health treatment is like finding out lil wayne lyrics are our greatest source of sexual education no darren you can't smack it up flip it like a spatula where did you even learn that what does it mean flip it like a spatula would you like it if i did that to your mother no you wouldn't you wouldn't darren so don't say it look look using the criminal justice system to treat the mentally ill isn't just ineffective it's expensive and it's dangerous because often when someone is having a mental health emergency the police will be called and that can end tragically by some estimates an incredible half of all incidents involving the police use of deadly force involve a mentally ill person and to their credit some police departments are changing the way they do things even creating special units like this one these officers are experts in what's called crisis intervention training would you say that you really don't want to die but you want the pain to stop would that be okay and you're willing to get some help today this woman agrees to get help we'll go in there together you'll ride with us we're in an unmarked car it's all part of a pioneering program where the mentally ill are diverted out of jails and into treatment okay well that seems really good but calling it a pioneering program is a little heartbreaking pioneering ideas should not be completely obvious things we should have been doing all along they should be outlandish things that push the limits of the possible like a fitted sheet that's easy to fold or marshmallow airbags or a sex doll without such judgy eyes don't look at me like that linda i'm lonely and we both know it unfortunately only 15 of law enforcement agencies even have crisis intervention training programs let alone special units and taking that training is typically voluntary and how can something so essential to your job be voluntary take the mascot for the tampa bay rays we don't let him decide whether or not to wear that costume because without it things can get ugly fast it's important for doing his job right and look that's just a tiny fix our whole system needs a massive overhaul which won't be easy the public safety net for the mentally ill spans medicaid which is different across the country eight federal agencies who administer 112 different programs that in some way touch on mental health and the social service agencies in each of the 50 states it is a cluster except that's an insult to cluster because at least in them there's the potential of a satisfying ending this is more of a frustrating cluster dry hump of some kind and that's not to say there aren't programs that work let's look at just one assertive community treatment it's designed to let those with serious mental illnesses live in the community by providing regular in-home visits and help coordinate coordinating assistance in things like housing and employment listen to just one social worker explain how it can work what makes mental health might not just be a visit to your psychiatrist it might also mean having your entitlements in place or it might mean having your rent paid on time so instead of meeting with a person and talking about how they're doing how they feel um on once a month or twice a month what we do is everything that it takes to keep people in the community living independently that's fantastic everything it takes sounds like a much better option than what we've apparently been trying which is nothing not anything very few things not much and prison and yet in many states assertive community treatment programs are in jeopardy thanks to everything from budget cuts to medicaid reimbursement problems despite the fact a study found that these programs pretty much pay for themselves which is fantastic government programs are like graduate students on a first date if they are able to pay for themselves it's a miracle and look again that's just one program there are many more designed for many different levels of need and we as a society we have to figure out how to fund them not just because it makes fiscal sense but because it would save lives and if i remember rightly there are some politicians who claim to be pretty motivated to address this problem this isn't guns this is about really mental illness and many of these shootings we have people who have uh mental disturbances do we need to do a better job in mental health you bet we do okay fine do it then because if we're going to constantly use mentally ill people to dodge conversations about gun control then the very least we owe them is a plan

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 11,446,697

Keywords: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (TV Program), Mental Health (Field Of Study), HBO (TV Network), John Oliver (TV Writer)

Id: NGY6DqB1HX8

Length: 11min 55sec (715 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 04 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/baskandpurr]

I have a lot of experience with mental illness and have lived inside and outside the US. To be fair, the american people's attitude to mental health is no different to other parts of the world. The problem is that the culture and the politics of the US does not value supporting the vulnerable. A good analogy for it would be to say "I have a gun and you have a gun so we don't shoot each other". That's not a kind or forgiving mindset but a truce enforced by mutual threat. So the mentally ill don't get anything, like any group that doesn't have a gun (rhetorically). But even with that, the US is one of the more civilised parts of the world and the less civilised parts deal with mental health far less effectively.

[u/jewdai]

Former Depression Sufferer here (Completed treatment 2 months ago woo!)

The issues I've faced:

1. admitting to myself that I need help
2. Actually getting help (So many psychs don't call you back or cant see you for at least a month)
3. Getting support taking medication (my mother who was an art therapist working with drug addicts wanted me to not take medication .... it was the only thing that helped, psychotherapy was bullshit)
4. getting psychologists who are not completely opposed to medication (i saw psychologists before seeking a psychiatrist)
5. Dealing with the social stigma tied to it.

[u/0and18]

Awarded¹