Mental Health
Deinstitutionalisation is the process of replacing long-stay psychiatric hospitals with less isolated community mental health services for those diagnosed with a mental disorder or developmental disability. Deinstitutionalisation works in two ways: the first focuses on reducing the population size of mental institutions by releasing patients, shortening stays, and reducing both admissions and readmission rates; the second focuses on reforming mental hospitals' institutional processes so as to reduce or eliminate reinforcement of dependency, hopelessness, learned helplessness, and other maladaptive behaviours. In many cases the deinstitutionalisation of the mentally ill in the Western world from the 1960s onward has translated into policies of "community release". Individuals who previously would have been in mental institutions are no longer continuously supervised by health care workers. Some experts, such as E. Fuller Torrey, have considered deinstitutionalisation to be a failure, while some consider many aspects of institutionalization to have been worse. With the closing of these state mental institutions it has become increasingly difficult for people who suffer from severe mental illness to receive treatment in a facility. Many mentally ill individuals were left homeless after Deinstitutionalization, making up one-third of the homeless population (D.E. Torrey). Today the most prominent treatment for the severely mentally ill is incarceration in a correctional facility, where mentally ill individuals are not receiving adequate care for their disorder.

Science reveals that showing gratitude makes us happier

11/29/22
from Aleteia,
11/21/22:

There are so many benefits of being thankful and this is a good time to recommit to the practice.

When everyone sits down to celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, if they have a true feeling of gratitude, they’ll actually be doing themselves a favor, according to studies reported in the Daily Health Post. As scientists have discovered, the very act of feeling grateful is beneficial for our health. One study, led by psychologists Dr. Robert Emmons of the University of California at Davis and Dr. Michael McCullough of the University of Miami, relied on feedback from three groups of people on the physical effects of practicing gratitude. What they learned is that the brain responds to genuine feelings of gratitude. So when you’re telling your kids to say “thank you and mean it,” you’re doing them a favor. 

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