This extensive overview charts the fluctuating course of mental health policy in the United States from colonial times to today. Mental Health in America: A Reference Handbook examines the evolution of mental health policy in America from the almshouses of colonial times and the dawn of psychoanalysis in the early 1900s to the community mental health revolution in the 1960s and the insurance problems plaguing the field today. Addressing such conditions as Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, anxiety, dementia, bipolar disorder, and depression, this work explores the changing definitions and explanations of mental illness and provides detailed analyses of treatments and their effects, including electroshock therapy, lobotomy, and psychotropic drugs. Readers will meet such key players as Horace Mann, who called for the insane to be made wards of the state, and assemblywoman Helen Thomson, an involuntary-treatment advocate referred to by her opponents as "Nurse Ratchett." A summary of court cases demonstrates the impact of legislation on mental health policy in the United States A detailed chronology of key events, reform movements, legislation, such as the National Mental Health Act of 1946, and landmark research findings

This international handbook is the first to analyze mental health policies systematically across a variety of both developed and developing countries. Mental health and public policy experts survey current policies, the public policy process, and critical issues in twenty countries that are representative of different problems. The work considers the treatment of the mentally ill and mentally retarded, mentally disordered offenses, questions of substance abuse, deinstitutionalization, funding, and consumer rights. This major reference, with its comprehensive and comparative survey, is designed for scholars, students, and professionals who deal with mental health and public policy issues.

This study presents an overview of the relationship between biomedical policy and mental health. It explores a broad array of biomedical research and technology issues which impact mental health policy, and it examines how the very conduct of biomedical research and the use of its technology have implications for the mental health of people. Synthesizing mental health history, law, policy, and treatment, Donna Kemp highlights mental health and reproductive technology and research, prevention issues, identification of and intervention in cases of mental disability, and drug treatment and experimentation issues.

This unique book examines how mental health issues impact the workplace, and explores ways to create more mentally healthy work environments. Kemp shows how a mentally healthy workplace can enhance productivity, satisfaction, attendance, and longevity in employment and how companies should comply with federal laws including the 1990s Americans with Disabilities Act. Kemp points out the importance of mental health in the selection, management, and retention of employees and addresses issues such as violence in the workplace and the effects of corporate culture. She also shows the extent to which mental health plays a role in physical health problems and the cost of inappropriately focusing on physical health care when the underlying issues are mental and emotional health and lifestyle.