Did you ever read the novel One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest or see the famous movie based on the book? Even if you haven’t read it or seen it, you probably know that they depict how medical professionals and the psychiatric hospital system treat hospital patients in a brutal manner.
While there has been abuse within psychiatric hospitals, they usually don’t—and shouldn’t—treat their patients so brutally. Unfortunately, some people think that such abuse is standard in psychiatric hospitals as well as in facilities that treat drug addiction and alcohol abuse.
Actually, many facilities treat people who have both substance use disorder problems and mental illnesses, a condition known as a dual diagnosis. This condition is very common. The lead character of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest liked to drink. Perhaps it’s possible he was suffering from alcohol abuse, although other people seemed to misdiagnose him with other conditions throughout the book and the movie.
Dual diagnosis treatment involves therapy. Not the therapy featured in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest but honest, helpful, constructive therapy. (It’s so hard not to spoil the book and the movie entirely!)
People are sometimes afraid of such therapy. They might be afraid that other people will make fun of them for revealing their innermost feelings, or use these feelings against them in some ways.
Qualified therapists and doctors won’t do this. They’re professionals. They’ve heard all sorts of things from all sorts of people. Their job is to assist people, not judge them.
If they do such things, they’ll hurt themselves as well as their patients. They entered their professions to help people, not hurt them. Their clients’ successes are their successes.
Group therapy can also help. This kind of therapy allows people to help other people who are facing the same problems. They might teach each other what works (and what doesn’t work) in different situations. They might provide confidence or warnings to the fellow members of the group who might be facing difficult situations.
While therapy is not the solution to all life’s problems, it can help different people in different situations.
