kefkat
Vital Football Legend
A more in-depth article than the usual, I thought it might interest some of you. Certainly interesting to read as it looks at mental health on different levels.
Shockingly it states there are 300 types/symptoms/threads of the umbrella term mental health.
The article also talk about what is seen as normal in some countries isn't in others. It considers how our lifestyles today play a part and talks of an innovation of a town who foster mentally ill people
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As the world grows richer and older, mental illness is becoming more common. John Prideaux considers the consequences
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IT ALL BEGAN when she lost her head. According to legend, Dimpna, a 7th-century Christian heroine, fled her native Ireland when her father, mad with grief at the death of his wife, developed an incestuous passion for his daughter. The father came after the girl and, rebuffed once more, beheaded her in the flatlands of what is now northern Belgium. Dimpna was canonised, and in medieval Europe developed a reputation for divine intercession that could heal madness. Her cult centred on Geel, a small Belgian town that forms one point of a triangle with Brussels and Antwerp. By the 19th century Geel had developed a system of foster care for the mentally ill in which patients, or guests as they are referred to, are adopted by families. It continues to this day. When at the turn of the 20th century the Belgian government threatened its existence with a decree that the insane should live in institutions, the whole town designated itself as an asylum.
Geel’s system can make heavy demands on the host families. Not everyone is deemed suitable for a foster placement—a high suicide risk and a penchant for pyromania are two counter-indications—“but the list of exclusions is not so long,” says Bert Lodewyckx, who runs a team at the local hospital that looks after elderly patients. In a town of just 35,000 souls, about 270 families have people living with them who would otherwise be kept in an institution. Foster families are told nothing about the psychiatric history of their new companions. “For a time, being a foster family was prestigious, a bit like owning a Mercedes-Benz,” Mr Lodewyckx explains. Host families are paid about €20 a day, but their main motives are tradition and altruism.
Cont: http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21657023-world-grows-richer-and-older-mental-illness-becoming-more-common-john-prideaux?fsrc=nlw|hig|9-07-2015|
Shockingly it states there are 300 types/symptoms/threads of the umbrella term mental health.
The article also talk about what is seen as normal in some countries isn't in others. It considers how our lifestyles today play a part and talks of an innovation of a town who foster mentally ill people
..............................................................................
As the world grows richer and older, mental illness is becoming more common. John Prideaux considers the consequences
.................................................
IT ALL BEGAN when she lost her head. According to legend, Dimpna, a 7th-century Christian heroine, fled her native Ireland when her father, mad with grief at the death of his wife, developed an incestuous passion for his daughter. The father came after the girl and, rebuffed once more, beheaded her in the flatlands of what is now northern Belgium. Dimpna was canonised, and in medieval Europe developed a reputation for divine intercession that could heal madness. Her cult centred on Geel, a small Belgian town that forms one point of a triangle with Brussels and Antwerp. By the 19th century Geel had developed a system of foster care for the mentally ill in which patients, or guests as they are referred to, are adopted by families. It continues to this day. When at the turn of the 20th century the Belgian government threatened its existence with a decree that the insane should live in institutions, the whole town designated itself as an asylum.
Geel’s system can make heavy demands on the host families. Not everyone is deemed suitable for a foster placement—a high suicide risk and a penchant for pyromania are two counter-indications—“but the list of exclusions is not so long,” says Bert Lodewyckx, who runs a team at the local hospital that looks after elderly patients. In a town of just 35,000 souls, about 270 families have people living with them who would otherwise be kept in an institution. Foster families are told nothing about the psychiatric history of their new companions. “For a time, being a foster family was prestigious, a bit like owning a Mercedes-Benz,” Mr Lodewyckx explains. Host families are paid about €20 a day, but their main motives are tradition and altruism.
Cont: http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21657023-world-grows-richer-and-older-mental-illness-becoming-more-common-john-prideaux?fsrc=nlw|hig|9-07-2015|
