The treatment of Mental Disorders can be a very lonely place to be if you are the focus. Treatment in a controlled environment can actually cause more issues for the patient than the original reason for the confinement that they are being forced to face.
A person with a mental disorder is under the eye watch of many professionals, who are strangers to the confused and sometimes hostile individual. The patient is confined to a secured unit in which they have little to no contact with family and friends.
There are understandable reasons that a violent or hostile person needs to be confined for their safety and the safety of others, however, a great majority of the time, the patients home life are contributing factors in their behavior and illness.
Keeping a person confined and away from family will not help promote healthy, appropriate interaction between the patient and real life situations that they are having trouble dealing with.
This leads to feelings of isolation and loneliness, which in fact can add to the unruly behaviors exhibited by the patient. More family therapy, including taped private interactions involving immediate members of the patients life could give the medical staff insight into better treatment interventions.
Almost anyone can improve behavior and moral outlook for a period of time when confined to a controlled environment. Patients with mental disorders need real life situations being experienced with appropriate responses taught to them in order to have a positive outcome when returning to life outside confinement.
Patients need their family members to be part of the solution, not only part of the problem.
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