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2024, “On the Outside Looking In?”
Philosopher Michel Foucault claimed that when the so-called mad were originally institutionalized, they were understood, and feared, along religious lines, as sinners, members of society who had fallen from grace. Later, he claimed, the expansion of such institutions was motivated by the need for social control. In addition to ‘housing’ the insane, asylums also locked-up political and religious dissenters, petty criminals, debtors, and the homeless. These people were imprisoned and abused. Today, we’re told, social control isn’t the issue. Modern medicine focuses, instead, on the causes of chemical imbalances in the brain, not morality. Thus, those with mental health challenges are no longer considered outsiders, locked-up against their will in often awful conditions.