Author: tmccourt

ABSTRACT

Statistics Canada show that one in every five Canadians suffer from mental illness.  Whether you suffer from a mental illness yourself, or know someone that does, you won’t have to look far to find someone suffering from mental health issues in Canada today. Historically, mental health was not an actively talked about issue in society. Those diagnosed with a mental disability were shipped away to hospitals that would prick and praw at them to find out what made them so different than the rest of society. No one understood the concept of mental illness and what mental health really was during this time period. Mental health had no concept, and neither did what they called patients with mental health issues. From mentally retarded to mentally disabled to, the most recently used term, mentally ill: what we have thought of as mentally health has changed drastically throughout history. Yet although these illnesses have been talked about and known about for centuries, there was only a real increase in institutions after the second World War due to the fact that the men in combat and women in the medical tents returned and had severe post-traumatic stress disorder. Little was known about the mental effects from post-war, therefore when people returned home and starting asking different they began to put them in mental institutions to help them but more importantly try and understand why they were seeing and hearing things. People were placed in institutions rapidly, many not actually needing the support but those that did need the help weren’t getting the full attention due to overpopulation in the institutions. Yet there was more to just the history of mental illness and the institutionalizations available during this time. It is time to focus on the issues and benefits of deinstitutionalization in Canada during 1970 to 1990 and their effects on health and the differences in gender.

[1] Statistics Canada, 2017.

[2]  Law, Maureen. Mental Health: A Shared Concern of the International Community. 1985.

[3] Martin, and Kedward. Hospitalization for Mental Illness: Evaluation of Admission Trends from 1941 to 1971. 1976.

[4] Bachrach, L. Deinstitutionalization: an Analytical Review and Sociological Perspective. US Department of Health, Education and Welfare. 1976.

[5] Landesman, S. & Butterfield, E. (1987). Normalization and Deinstitutionalization of Mentally Retarded Individuals: Controversy and Fact, 42(8), 809-816.

[6] Boschma, G. (2011). Deinstitutionalization Reconsidered: Geographic and Demographic Changes in Mental Health Care in British Columbia and Alberta, 1950 – 1980: Histoire Sociale/Social History, 44(88), 223-256.

[7] Macfarlane, D., Fortin, P., Fox, J., Gundry S., Oshry, J., & Warren E. (1997). Clinical and Human Resource Planning for the Downsizing of Psychiatric Hospitals: The British Columbia Experience: Psychiatric Quarterly, 68(1), 25-42.  

[8]  Richman, A. & Harris, P. Mental Hospital Deinstitutionalization in Canada. A National Perspective with Some Regional Examples. 1983. 11(3), 64-83.

[9] Bachrach, L. Deinstitutionalization and Community Adjustment of Mentally Retarded People: A Conceptual Approach to Deinstitutionalization of the Mentally Retarded. Washington, D.C.: American Association on Mental Deficiency. 51-70. 1981.

[1]0 Hincks, Clarence M. Conserving Mental Health in Canada. Canadian Public Health Association. 1947.

[11] Larkin, C., Bruininks, R., Sigford, B. Deinstitutionalization and Community Adjustment of Mentally Retarded People: Early Perspectives on the Community Adjustment of Mentally Retarded People.  Washington, D.C.: American Association on Mental Deficiency. 28-50. 1981.

[12] Malacrida, C. A Special Hell: Institutional Life in Alberta’s Eugenic Years. 2015.

[13] Changing Patterns in Residental Services for the Mentally Retarded. Presidents Committee on Mental Retardation. 1976.

[14] Johnson, K. Deinstitutionalizing Women. A Ethnographic Study of Institutional Closure. Cambridge University Press. 1998.

[15] Bellamy, T., O’Connor, G., Karan, O. Vocational Rehabilitation of Severely Handicapped Persons. Contemporary Service Strategies. University Park Press, 1978.   

[16] Ross, Helen et al. Sex Differences in the Prevalence of Psychiatric Disorders in Patients with Alcohol and Drug Problems. Department of Psychiatry, Toronto. 1988.

[17] Linhorst, Donald M. Empowering People with Severe Mental Illness: A Practical Guide. Oxford Univ. Press, 2006.

When I first started my research project I wanted to do my project on the history of eating disorders and pregnancy. I tried to find research in Canada for two whole days but quickly found out that this was going to be a difficult topic to try and research. The issue was that eating disorders were most prominent in young people, and not those wanting to have children. I also wasn’t able to find much in Canada, although I was able to find multiple articles about African women and their pregnancies. Therefore I went to the library to look for an idea and when I started looking I found an abundance of books about mental illness in Canada and the deinstitutionalization of those with mental illness. This was the perfect topic as it hit very close to home and it was something I was very interested in so it made it easier to write an essay on.

For me mental health has had a huge impact in my life. Ever since I was born my grandfather had been very sick. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when my father was just six years old. Later in my grandfather’s life, due to inadequate medication and an unhealthy environment, he was later diagnosed with schizophrenia. What made me so interested in the deinstitutionalization of mental health hospitals was the fact that my grandfather was part of the 4,000 plus residents of the Riverview Hospital, located in Coquitlam BC, in 1980 to be forced out of their homes in part of the “closer to home project”. This project was supposed to attempt to integrate the mentally ill back into their communities, yet for many it only pushed them on to the streets where they would ultimately become homeless. Only those that had families that were involved were most likely to succeed from this project. I wanted to focus on the institutions that were available for Canadian residents but more importantly their lives during and after deinstitutionalization.

Society has an ideal; whether it be an ideal body type, mental health or even an ideal outlook on how men and women act. As children we are pressed with these social norms of the two genders. Boys must play with trucks, wear blue, and never cry. While girls must play with dolls, dress as princesses and love the color pink. “Men were constructed primarily as breadwinners and women as mothers. For men, it was important to be healthy because this meant that they were able to enact their citizenship by providing economic support for their families. For women, health was essential as they were responsible for reproducing the nation through the birth of future citizens” (Penny Light, 324). In Anika Stafford’s article I Feel Like a Girl Inside: Possibilities for Gender and Sexual Diversity in Early Primary School she makes a real life recognition to the gender norms. “One day a seven-year-old came up to me, rubbing hands together, and announced conspiratorially, “so, they’re playing boys chase girls.” “Uh oh,” was my genuine response, “what should we do about that?” The student raised one finger in the air, a habit when making proclamations, and said: “I think I will tell them that anyone can play any part”” (Stafford, 9). At such a young age we are taught how the different gender should act and must act. Seeing young people challenge the way stereotypes view gender should be a wakeup call to those that don’t see an issue in society. “Notions of sexuality are deeply bound to binary gender normal” (Stafford, 12). Yet when does the urge to look a certain way become too much and make you do whatever is possible to fit those specific guidelines? And then who decides what is the “best” way to look for optimal health? “By the turn of the twentieth century, doctors in Canada had established themselves as the scientific experts on the body” (Penny Light, 323). It’s ironic that we rely so much on the voices of those medical experts yet when we take a step back and evaluate our own bodies we can find out so much more. Only we know how we are actually feeling about our self. Both medical and cosmetic surgery has become such a trend in the last twenty years. “In all of the cases, whether discussions about the need to repair or reconstruct some deformity or injury, or about the desire of patients to be altered for strictly cosmetic purposes, the ways in which society viewed men and women and what was valued in terms of their appearance were central” (Penny Light, 336). Whether it is for medical or cosmetic purposes it is every human’s rights to look however the choose to look and portray themselves. We are not stuck to the social norms that lie in society, we are unique and one of a kind and we should be proud of that.

There seems to always be a right way of going about being sick, whether or not everyone believes in the same way, it is always your way that is right. When should you stop trying to do things for yourself and actually listen to medical experts? Today with a medical system in place in Canada most of us go to the doctor when we are need of help, but it wasn’t ever like this. Only a mere 50 years ago going to the doctor wasn’t normal for people, many didn’t ever have access to a doctor. In the 1950’s to the 1960’s there was a major issue arising in Canada. “This anxiety was strongly expressed in one of the most hotly debated issues of the day – water fluoridation. The history of water fluoridation has been largely ignored in contemporary accounts of the era, in part because the debates over fluoridation tended to be highly localized. They flared up when a community decided to put fluoride in the water or hold a referendum” (Carstairs, 347). There was much controversy about whether drinking this water in Canada would be safe for the people. “Doctors and dentists claimed that water fluoridation was perfectly safe and that it would dramatically reduce the incidence of tooth decay. And yet, Canadians consistently voted against fluoridation in municipal referendums. Fluoridation did slowly take hold, but even today, only 42.6 per cent of Canadians drink fluoridated water” (Carstairs, 347). So this brings up the question when and where do you listen to the medical experts and when do you use your own judgement to decide what, and what is not, good for you. “Between 1920 and 1970, during half of this century, doctors and those concerned more specifically with “mental hygiene” – psychologists, psychiatrists, educators, and social workers-formulated a body of shared ideas and approaches to the all-encompassing “health” of the young” (Comacchio, 140).  Although they researched and tested their hypothesis’, many Canadians still did not take their advice when it came to a healthy body image. Canadians have had the opportunity to get regular checkups, and yearly exams. We are fortunate compared to those throughout our history. Although many of us complain when we have to go see our doctor it isn’t a bad thing, at least we have a doctor.

An important part to any lifestyle is your health and your physical life, but at what point is eating healthy and working out enough? For those that believe in healthism their health and physical exertion are the only thing that matter. There are many natural approaches that go hand in hand with healthism. There are many different ways to be “healthy”. Every diet pill, healthy ad, exercise book, and workout dvds will swear to you that if you use their product you will be healthy, yet what does it actually mean to be healthy? “Marketers used health as a means to advertise their products, many of which appear to have little to do with health, by presenting an idealized version of the healthy male (and female) body in an effort to form an authoritative connection with the consumer” (Wendelboe, 248).  The first issue arises with the female body. Jenny Ellison is an author that talks about the “health benefits” in aerobics, and the critiques that come with the topic. The history of aerobics started in the mid-1980’s. “By 1984 aerobics, dancercise, and jazzercise were among the most popular physical activities of North America in Women” (Ellison, 193). An issue that arose during this time was in the increase in larger women becoming interested in aerobics. For many this was a new thing to happen. Body shaming and discrimination against larger women and men was a major issue in Canada in the 1980. In 1984 a group immerged called “Large as Life (LaL), a Vancouver “action group” whose motto was “Stop postponing your life until you lose weight and start living now!” Formed in 1981, the group’s mandate was to promote increased self-acceptance in large women” (Ellison, 194). These women gave women of different sizes the opportunity to be proud of the body they are in and life a healthy life style. For some a healthy weight is more than others, therefore it is wrong to judge someone for their body shape. The media played an important role as well in the “Being fat was not always pleasant or easy, but LaL gave members permission to treat themselves and their bodies and dignity. The notion of fat-acceptance gave these women permission to participate in health and popular culture in a way that they had no previously believed was available to them” (Ellison, 214).  For males came the issue of masculinity came through, “popular culture surveyed and controlled the male body through cultural signifiers such as Playboy and Esquire in which marketers used to discourse healthy sexuality to grant authoritative power to their advertisements” (Wendelboe, 250). Not always is a healthy weight the weight of a super model. Every body is different therefore everybody needs to diet and exercise accordingly.

“About 1 in 2 Canadians will develop cancer in their lifetimes and 1 in 4 will die of the disease” (Canadian Cancer Society, 2017). Cancer is a major issue in Canada. It effects everyone; whether it is something you are struggling with or someone you know that has it. When you think about how major of a topic cancer is in Canada it is still baffling to think there is no cure for the disease, let alone no one knows the real reason (maybe it really is just hereditary) to why humans get cancer. To better understand cancer though we must go into the past and look at cancer from a historical perspective. “The images of cancer are not positive. Early in the century physicians considered it a “dreaded disease” with an “insidious nature,” resulting in “suffering and great mortality.” Even when doctors considered the curative rate improving, Canadians remained caught in their fear of cancer, as in incidence rate continued to increase with thousands of Canadians dying from it each year” (Mitchinson, 215). Throughout Canada’s history we have always tried to help those with cancer. “As early as the 1920’s, L’Insitut du Radium in Montreal provided treatment for those with cancer. In the 1930s Saskatchewan introduced legislation to establish to Cancer Relief Act. In the 1940s, Alberta introduced the Cancer Treatment and Prevention Act and the Provincial Royal Jubilee Hospital” (Mitchinson, 216). During the same time, “the founding of the Canadian Cancer society in 1938 and the National Cancer Institute in 1947 increased cancer research and public awareness of both cancer and the lack of screening-program funding” (Hadenko, 128). “Historians of cancer have shown, as well, that the association between emotions and malignant disease, especially in women, has played a part in Western medicine for centuries, though interest in such a connection had reached a low ebb by the early 20th century” (Jasen, 267). There is must controversy about the correlation between post war depression and cancer in women. “It should be acknowledged that not all historians are in agreement over the nature and degree of postwar anti-feminism. Johanne Meyerowitz maintains that the notion (popularized by Betty Friedan and others in the early 1960s) that there was one oppressive ideology suffuring postwar mass culture’s view of women’s role and destiny has dominated the historiographical treatment of the period and distorted our understanding” (Jasen, 271). For many of these women their cancer was cervical. “Cervical cancer is one of the few cancers that with early detection, can have a 100 per cent cure rate. By the mid-twentieth century, medical communities in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom understood cervical cancer as a potentially preventable disease” (Hadenko, 127). Cancer being such a difficult disease to deal with, most of the time, it is hard for some people to accept the fact they have it. Yet when we talk about it we get the knowledge out about how we can help others with cancer, and the treatment options for those struggling. Hadenko states in her article about cervical cancer in women, “it appears that cervical cancer is finally getting the public exposure it has been demanding for half a century” (146). Although cervical cancer in women wasn’t the only issue in Canada; men and prostate cancer is also happening at the same time. There are many studies that show that women tend to live longer than the average male, and in Rachelle Miele and Juanne Clarke’s article they also state that “masculinity prescribes that men are more likely than women to adopt certain behaviors that increase their health risks” (16). There are many ways to protect yourself from prostate cancer getting too serious to cure, one of these ways is to regularly go to prostate-specific antigen screenings. Although cancer is such a talked-about topic on the media some men tend to not take the risks of getting prostate cancer very seriously. There are many reasons to why a man may not get a screening. “Men who do not participate in the screenings do not do so because they do not have symptoms; they are embarrassed because of the procedure, the fear surrounding cancer and diagnosis, and general confusion about the screening” (Clarke & Miele, 16). With such high reports about cancer and all of its effects it’s time to take action. There are many organizations that aid people with cancer but we need to focus on the things we can do to catch cancer before it spreads. Let’s start talking about the testing available for men and women in Canada so we can catch the cancer before it’s too late.

Pregnancy is the most important thing to us as a human race, as without it we would not be where we are today. Well let’s be real we wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for our mother’s strong pain tolerance and our father’s willingness to want a child. For everyone pregnancy can be different; some it’s easy to get pregnant while other struggle with infertility their entire life and can never have a child of their own. Pregnancy has changed over the years in many different way: where the mother tends to give birth, how she gives birth, which prenatal vitamins are given, the foods she can and cannot eat, even which types of physical activity can be dangerous or not, the list goes on and on.  A major controversy in the 1950’s and 1960’s was with the use of thalidomide.  Barbra Clow states, “Thalidomide first appeared in West Germany in 1957, under the trade name Contergan. It was synthesized in 1953 by Chemie Gruenethal and then tested on animal and human subjects before being released for general consumption. These early experiments suggested the Contergan was not only a highly effective sleeping aid, but also an exceptionally safe one” (47). Although the start of this medicine started in Germany, “On 1 April 1961 Richardson-Merrell’s brand of thalidomide, Kevadon, went on sale in Canada” (Clow, 47). The pill seemed to have so many great reasons to start taking it, yet the issues with the pill came not only after only taking it for a couple weeks, but also after the child was already born and it was too late. There were many “disturbing side effects which included severe constipation, hangover, loss of memory, hypotension, petechial hemorrhages, trembling, incoordination, numbness, and even partial paralysis” (Clow, 48). “Doctors even began to notice a disturbing increase in phocomelia, an unusual congenital anomaly involving the absence or shortening of the arms and/or legs die to the malformation of the long bones, with associated abnormalities of the hands, feet, fingers, and/or toes” (Clow, 48). Many women had trouble if they became pregnant during this time yet medicine wasn’t the only issue that was evolving. During the same time in the 1950’s and the 1960’s to study of exercise and pregnancy was being studied. In this time, “cracks began to appear in the discursive field of physical activity and pregnancy as texts publishing in the newly developing field of sport medicine referred to a number of pregnant women competing in high level athletic competitions, including the Olympic Games. While several of these texts questioned the safety of such behaviors and advised them against it (despite acknowledging that no ill effects had been reported), long-held assumptions about the abilities of the pregnant body began to be called into question” (Jette, 296). Many studies took place and many are still being tested today because they don’t know the true effect of exercise on not only the mother but the fetus inside her. Today, “it is argued that women are gaining too much weight during pregnancy, (and) are “programming” the fetus to be an overweight/obese adult, and are failing to lose the extra weight post-pregnancy. Exercise during pregnancy has thus taken on a new significance and moderate exercise is being constructed within a growing amount of medical literature as a tool to prevent the “maternal-fetus diseases” of overweight/obesity and diabetes in both the mother and child” (Jette, 309). There is still much discussion about what, if any, specific exercises are safe during pregnancy. Yet as time goes on more research will be able to predict the outcome of strenuous physical activities on pregnant women. Another dispute about the “healthy way to be pregnant” is at which place should you have your child born; hospital or home birth. “Midwifery as a social movement shares with feminist scholarship on reproduction critical readings of mainstream maternity care as a process that alienates women from their bodies, fragments the potential wholeness of the birth experience, and commodifies both women and babies. This medicalization thesis holds that obstetric medicine developed its tools and technologies for the control and manipulation of what was purported to be the inherently defective, and therefore dangerous, process of birth” (Macdonald, 239).  A midwife isn’t something that every women decides to use while they are going through the pregnancy process. The facts about whether or not to use a midwife, or go into the hospital, or stay at home to give birth have changed throughout the years. And will continue to change.  The future holds so many possibilities for the medical research, and the likelihood of the change in social norms of pregnancy.

This week’s readings were based on the Indigenous Health in Canada between the dates of the 1900’s to 1952. During this time there was a lot of outbreaks of diseases and illnesses that were sweeping the Aboriginal communities; some much worse than the others. These communities were put under observation during many periods so researchers could study their habits and see what they could do to help them with their illnesses. These people were left alone to have to try and survive with the little to none, medicine they made at home. “In the words of the Shuswap elder, Augusta Tappage, ‘No doctor, no help/ If your child was sick/ It had to die. That’s how it was in those days’” (Kelm, 6). Aboriginal population was suffering in ways that the Caucasian population would have never even imagined. Mosby writes in his article Administering Colonial Science: Nutrition Research and Human Biomedical Experimentation in Aboriginal Communities and Residential Schools, 1942-1955 about these differences. He states, “While most the (Aboriginal) people were going out and trying to make a living, they were really sick enough to be in bed under treatment and that if they were white people, they would be in bed and demanding care and medical attention” (Mosby, 146). “At this same time, however, rates of disease and death remained depressingly high – higher than in the non-Aboriginal population. Infectious diseases of all kinds, particularly tuberculosis, stalked the First Nations whose living conditions and subsistence bases were gradually eroded during this era” (Kelm, 3). Although there was a tremendous amount of diseases and illnesses that were attacking these populations the one that prevailed the most was tuberculosis. Throughout all of these studies they found out that, “The Aboriginal death rate from tuberculosis was fifteen times higher than the rate of the population as a whole in 1942” (Kelm, 9). Mosby also found, “tuberculosis (had a) death rate of 1,400 per 100,000 (compared to 27.1 for the non-Aboriginal population of Manitoba)” (147). They had little evidence to find the cause of how tuberculosis was coming into the households of these families. Although in Maureen Lux article Care for the ‘Racially Careless’: Indian Hospitals in the Canadian West, 1920-1950’s she states, “At the same time, a 1927 survey in British Columbia implicated the schools in the spread of tuberculosis infection in children. Researchers found a clear link between bone and gland infection in residential school children and the raw milk used in the schools. They concluded that the infection could not have come from home, since few reserve families used cow’s milk” (413). These children were getting ill from just being at school, not even from being at home. They were taken away from their families under their own will and brought to a school that wasn’t aiding them in anyway, it was hindering them from the potential of a good life. The Aboriginal people were a huge part of our past and are still a huge part of our future here in Canada. The things they had to overcome to get here today are astonishing. Although we cannot undo the past that has been done against these people and the hardships they have had to overcome, we can learn and discover the Aboriginal history and teach it to future generations so that we can learn from the mistakes our ancestors and create a better future for all.