What has happened to a society that used to value self-respect and have a sense of shame?
Twenty-five or 30 years ago this country still had a sort of backup system to take care of people, and that was the state hospital. As state hospitals have diminished in size and number, it has become apparent that either mental health workers in the community take care of these people or nobody will. And too often nobody does. But hasn’t society also changed? I think we go through cycles of caring and not caring. I think in the 1960s and toward the end of the 1970s we were at high points in the cycle of caring. But in general we have been in a downward slope in this cycle. I think we’re now at a place where we don’t care very much. The positive side of what you’ve just said is that the cycle may recur. What do you think could cause it to recur? I don’t know what might cause it to happen. But one sees evidence of it sometimes now in the anger that people feel toward managed care. Even legislators are getting angry and are trying to intervene in the process that has made getting care mo
