Nybol Majok Prof Presnell English 1103 16 October 2012

Mental Illnesses and Asylums Proposal Inquiry question: Does isolating the mentally ill away from the general population do society a favor? Primary purpose: My interest in mental illnesses and asylums began when I first took AP Psychology back in high school and started learning about the brain and its abnormalities. Ive always had questions about the topic and was starting to get answers to some of them. I remember watching the movie A Beautiful Mind and being fascinated by the effects of schizophrenia. I actually considered becoming a psychiatrist at one point, but didnt want to stay in school for such a long period. However, I am still deeply interested in the topic.

10 Questions: From there, other questions started to come to my attention. 1. Is there a correlation between actual Asylums and the ones portrayed in movies (shutter Island)? 2. Are those in asylums being exploited by science? 3. Are they actually being treated for their illness?

4. How are they funded? 5. What are positive things that medicine and technology have contributed to helping treat the mentally ill? 6. What is the history behind mental illnesses? 7. Who came up with the idea for asylums? 8. What qualifies you to be admitted? 9. Should those who commit acts of murder be allowed to plead insanity or should they be given equal treatment? 10. What were some of the experimental tortures to get rid of the illness?

Prior knowledge: The things I did already know about this topic are from a historical perspective. I was familiar with eugenics and the movement to sterilize those with mental problems from reproducing. Im also familiar with the methods taken by the Nazi Germany to get rid of the mentally ill, so that they didnt mix with the Aryan race.

Prior beliefs, assumptions, stereotypes: I think of mental asylums to be really creepy and scary places to be. I associated mental illnesses with genetic mutations and perhaps something just went wrong in the persons genes. Based off of what we see portrayed in movies, I do feel sympathetic for the mentally ill. They dont always seem to live the most fulfilling and normal lives. Working Knowledge:

When I searched up the topic on Google, many sites provided a clinical perspective of the subject. WebMD for an example provides the symptoms, types, and treatments for the different illnesses. WebMD describes mental illnesses as various things from anxiety, addictions, and of course psychological disorders. In the Encyclopedia Britannica, mental disorders are classified as both psychological and behavioral manifestations. It also states that mental illnesses are more prominent now and affect people lives than before in the past. This partly due to people being more stressed out from everyday life, and the fact that there is a more vast amount of info on what is classified as an illness. If I have to narrow: I will narrow to just looking at how psychiatric hospitals operate If I have to broaden: I will broaden to looking at the history, the progress that society has made in the treatment of the mentally insane, and how advances in medicine have made life better for the mentally ill. I want to find out if it is possible for the mentally ill to coexist with society, despite their problems.