As different treatments and living situations are explored, AOT, or Assisted Outpatient Treatment, quickly is becoming a very affordable and effective option. AOT is specifically designed for those who do not have the capacity to or do not want to accept voluntary treatment, but are also prone to homelessness, incarceration, or violence. In fact, DJ Jaffe claims that “… there is no more proven, humane, or cost-efficient intervention than Assisted Outpatient Treatment” (229). Essentially, AOT takes place outside hospitals and psychiatric institutes, but the patient is certainly not alone. The way it works is that a patient goes to court, and if necessary, a judge “sentences” patients to a certain period of time. They spend this time living in the community, surrounded and constantly monitored by various doctors, nurses, and family members. During this time of recovery and healing, the patient is not restricted in a hospital room, rather finding his or her place in the community as a sane person. One bonus of AOT is that if it is enacted, the mental health system is ordered to provide the service, leaving no room for the industry to ignore the necessary treatment and claim they have no more room in their hospitals. Even after overwhelmingly positive evidence pointing towards AOT, the mental health industry still convinces counties and states to deny AOT’s effectiveness. When AOT is ordered, other services such as assisted housing, psychotherapy, and substance abuse counseling can be utilized. For those that still do not believe that AOT works, it reduced homelessness by 74 percent, hospitalization 77 percent, arrest 83 percent, incarceration 87 percent, physical harm to others 47 percent, property destruction 46 percent, suicidal behavior 55 percent, substance abuse 48 percent, in the most difficult to treat patients who already accumulated multiple hospitalizations or acts of violence associated with going off treatment. AOT is proven to work, and anecdotes from patients who have experienced it and are now in control of their lives said AOT played a major role in helping them get and stay well. Every county should adopt this program and ignore the industry when it claims AOT isn’t effective, as studies continuously prove the opposite.
SOURCE:
Jaffe, DJ. “Insane Consequences: How the Mental Health Industry Fails the Mentally Ill.” Prometheus Books, 2017. Accessed 5 August 2022.
Out of My Mind 