DST 500 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Deinstitutionalisation

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Disability Studies
• Course: DST 500
• Professor: Jenna Reid

Document Summary

Involved the increased discharge and decreased intake of patients. Closing of asylums and institutions and the movement of people into the community . The deinstitutionalization began slowly in the late 1940s. Inmates were being released from asylums before psychiatric drugs were introduced to the asylum population. Ex-patients were released with a few social supports in place. The closure of public institutions left a gap that was filled by the private sector. Disrupts the idea that mad and disabled people are no longer incarcerated. Lets us see how institutions and psychiatric meds are disabling/create disability. Makes political connections between different forms of incarceration. Lets us interrogate the political economy of locking people up. Allows us to examine how psychiatric drugs work as a form of incarceration. The state can overturn advanced directives" in tribunals. Hard to find alternative forms of therapy; many people are not allowed to reject.