Research: Topics: Health Care: Strategic Plan for Documenting Mental Health in NY
A Strategic Plan for Documenting Mental Health in New York State
Documentation Priority Descriptions and Potential Records
Priority: Document the experiences of people who receive mental health services.
The issue: New York's efforts to provide mental health services have spanned two centuries and involved many hundreds of thousands of individuals. In the state system alone, as many as 93,000 individuals in one year have been recipients of mental health services. Yet fewer than 85 collections of records exist in New York that document the experience of individuals. In the main, those consist of medical records and case files that provide one perspective on people with psychiatric histories. The voices of service recipients are virtually silent in the historical record.
Goal: To document recipient experiences of treatment and therapy, including:
- Types such as drug, surgical, electroconvulsive, and homeopathic treatments; psychotherapy; music, art, and occupational therapies; and self-help and recipient-run alternatives
- Forced versus voluntary treatment
- In settings such as state psychiatric centers and their predecessors, hospitals, group homes, out-patient facilities, private offices
Goal: To document recipient experiences related to the social environment, including societal attitudes toward mental health issues, in:
- Institutions such as state psychiatric centers and their predecessors, hospitals, correctional facilities
- Day treatment homes, group homes and other private facilities
- Unified service counties
- Family and other non-mental-health-related settings
Goal: To document recipient experiences related to the physical environment in:
- Institutions such as state psychiatric centers and their predecessors, hospitals, correctional facilities
- Day treatment homes, group homes and other private facilities
- Family and other non-mental-health-related settings
Goal: To document experiences of particular types of recipients, including such characteristics as:
- Age: Children, juveniles, and the elderly
- Ethnic/racial groups: Central and Eastern Europeans, Latino/as, Asians, Native Americans, and African-Americans
- Gender
- Sexual orientation
- Economic status
- Immigrants
- People involved in the criminal justice system
Existing documentation
The State Archives search for publicly available mental health documentation uncovered voluminous case files from the state psychiatric centers, some dating back to the 19th century. These may offer valuable information about the experiences of patients in the hospitals, but rarely in their voices or from their points of view.
Where to look for more records (preliminary suggestions only)
For first-person accounts by mental health consumers and ex-patients:
- OMH Bureau of Recipient Affairs
- Organizations that are part of the consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement,
- Mental health advocacy and support organizations, statewide and local, may collect first-person narratives by consumers and ex-patients.
- Numerous mental health related web sites in New York that contain a wide range of first-person narratives.
- Newspaper stories and features on mental health may contain first-person accounts.
For case histories and other third-person accounts that may describe or provide information about recipients’ experiences:
- The records of municipal and county mental health departments
- Other government agencies such as the New York City Department of Homeless Services, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, law enforcement agencies and the courts that may serve or otherwise encounter people with psychiatric histories
- Private mental health service providers
- Mental health advocacy organizations
