Madness, crazy, insane, and in need of help

To me our readings for Margaret Price's Mad at School hits two sides of my academic learning history about the field of psychology and history. The terms crazy, madness, and insane are all words which have plagued and shadowed what is the real problem in our society is and that is giving help to those who can't help themselves. When people say things like nuthouse, looney-bin, cuckoo's nest and other nicknames we have trouble realizing that what all of those words symbolize is society mistreatment of those people who are mentally unable to function as a "normal" person in today's society. As a psychology major I have learned through direct and indirect affects of society turning a blind eye to people in help because those same individuals don't fit their schema of what a person should act like. To me Margaret Price's article is exactly what the world needs in order to realize some of their faults and imperfections. Miss Price also made a valid argument in a major problem in this world and that is naming the problem, issue, or condition someone might suffer from. To society a mislabel of any kind can influence the rest of your existence as part of the human race and can literally affect how you are treated based on that label. For example, mental stress from war used to be called "shell shocked" but in today's society it have developed into post tramatic stress disorder or PTSD. It is labeling and relabeling which can shift a society of people to loss focus of what is important and who is involved and suffering. Between shell shock being switch to PTSD our society saw a mistreatment of veterans and it is not until in our present day that we see a major improvement to the men and women returning from active duty over seas. We also see that a difference is being made in the world of psychology and the medical profession. For example, the negative term retarded has been relabeled cognitive impairment. I can only say that time will tell if this relabeling will be a change for the better. But as long as people such as Margaret Price keep pushing some of the issues like negative label only then will society pay closure attention to its own actions as a whole.