IDS 354 - Bedlam to Bellevue - On Being “Mad” in the US from 1960 to Present

• Generate a timeline of the important events in mental health care over the last 60 years and determine how those milestones have created the framework of our current mental health care system.
• Reflect on the stigma of madness in the mid-twentieth century to the stigma of the present and determine how changes in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual have impacted public views on mental health.
• Design a timeline of pharmacological and psychological treatment regimens for a student-selected diagnosis and discuss how the changes at each major point in time impacted the individual experience, as well as hypothesize future trends.
• Reflect on the way that modern society views heinous events (e.g., mass shootings) and determine at what point in history we changed from judging such acts as “evil” and began to focus on the perpetrators’ diagnoses of mental illness or contributing psychological factors.
• Create a timeline for one diagnosis, exploring the optimal  psychological and pharmacological treatment of each era, the public perception of the diagnosis, and the way that individuals accessed treatment.
• Differentiate between the lived experience of three individuals with the same diagnosis during three different eras, and integrate their shared experiences into a single analysis of how diagnosis and institutionalization impacted their mental state, their physical well being, their relationships with others, and their ability to return to the world.