3 Ways the American Mental Health System Has Fallen Apart

[HereSince1628]

8. I suspect parity is in part a problem because of a thing going unnamed...

Many Americans don't accept that mental illness as something that is legitimately disease, but rather as weakness of character or even factious.

Another issue is the public's perception of division of labor constructed by the professions and enforced by training and licensing

Within that framework physicians and surgeons attend to the "real medical" problems

The not so serious and non-medical problems are handed off to chiropracters, pediatrists, optometrists and...psychological therapists.

That gets further complicated by social institutions such as town councils criminalizing 'disorderly' behaviors, and by belief systems that deny psychiatry as valid (Scientology being the most obvious, but not only example), and the pervasive culture of strength that sees mental illness as a character issue either as a weakness, a flaw, or both.