PHYSICAL MENTAL IN HOMELESSNESS

Physical mental in homelessness

Physical mental in homelessness

Introduction

The complex interrelationship between mental illness and homelessness has long been noted by service delivery agencies, public health workers and social justice bodies. Following changes in mental health service delivery in the latter part of last century, the observation was swiftly made that the homeless reflected higher rates of mental illness than the rest of the population. Documented rates of the prevalence of mental illness in homeless people range from 2 to 90%. Down and Out in Sydney (Chamberlain, 1999, pp. 10) found that 75% of participants in the study of the Sydney inner-city homeless population had at least one mental illness compared to 20% in the general population.

Indeed, in 1978, American researchers noted that people with mental illness had come to personify homelessness, referring to New York's Bowery as a “psychiatric dumping ground” (Reich and Siegel, 1978). As psychiatric diagnosis became more discriminating, the diversity and origins of disorder became clearer and the links between homelessness and illness discerned (Alberta, 2004, pp. 51).

Causal chains are many and varied. There is a well-established link between poverty and poor mental health (Aubry, 2006, pp. 74); poverty may impact housing, education, employment, social support, family cohesion, and access to health services. Family dysfunction may be linked to individual dysfunction in childhood and poor kin support and coping mechanisms make the onset of mental illness more likely to result in homelessness. Unstable mental health may be linked to poor employment prospects, low income, and inability to sustain permanent and secure accommodation. Self-medication or other entries into substance abuse complicate psychiatric symptoms and make dually diagnosed individuals particularly prone to unstable living arrangements (Chamberlain, 1999, pp. 10).

These sequelae are of the utmost significance, not simply because each of them offer opportunities for preventative and interventive activity but because they demonstrate the many spheres in which homelessness and mental illness is active. The routes to homelessness are varied and services to assist the homeless mentally ill must stem them all in order for strategies to be at all effective.

Maslow's theory

Abraham Maslow developed the Hierarchy of Needs model in 1940-50's USA, and the Hierarchy of Needs theory remains valid today for understanding human motivation, management training, and personal development. Indeed, Maslow's ideas surrounding the Hierarchy of Needs concerning the responsibility of employers to provide a workplace environment that encourages and enables employees to fulfil their own unique potential (self-actualization) are today more relevant than ever. Abraham Maslow's book Motivation and Personality, published in 1954 (second edition 1970) introduced the Hierarchy of Needs, and Maslow extended his ideas in other work, notably his later book Toward A Psychology Of Being, a significant and relevant commentary, which has been revised in recent times by Richard Lowry, who is in his own right a leading academic in the field of motivational psychology.

Prevalence

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 20 to 25% of the homeless population in the United States suffers from some form of severe ...