Dr. Alice Feller, MD speaks with Paul Krauss MA LPC about her experiences working as a psychiatrist both within the public mental health system and private practice. Dr. Feller discusses the barriers inside the current system that are diminishing care to helping those who are most afflicted by mental health concerns. Dr. Feller tells stories of those she has worked to help and how some healthcare policies, current laws, and ignorance of mental health conditions negatively affect those seeking care of severe mental illnesses such as Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia. Dr. Feller and Paul discuss the correlations between homelessness and those suffering from mental illnesses.
According to Dr. Feller, author of American Madness: Fighting for Patients In a Broken Mental Health System, the deinstitutionalization movement (especially the obscure "16-bed law" regarding public federal healthcare funding) caused many of the homelessness issues we see today, and that mental illness and addiction don't necessarily cause homelessness — but that homelessness often triggers or exacerbates mental illness and addiction. What's more, most treatment for serious mental illness and addiction is doled out in American prisons, an issue which criminalizing homelessness would only worsen.
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