Forced psychiatric treatment

Hurricane wrote:Some say forced psychiatric treatment is needed when someone is a "risk to others". What exactly do psychiatrists mean? In my case I am not a violent person, but when your locked up in a secure enviroment being followed at arms length, restrained and drugged on a daily basis is there any wonder people get violent? I have attacked nurses before, but they are keeping me prisoner so what do they expect?? Psychiatric hospitals can drive someone into insanity even if they were fine before, restraining clothes off an abuse victim...forcing a tube up a patients nose, injecting them with dangerous drugs.. where does the brutality stop in this system

I saw a girl in the hospital who would yell " I hate this place and just want to go home !!!!" she was also a bit promiscuous.

After the electro-shock treatment this strong willed girl had a smile stuck on her face but was like gone, it wasnt her , like no one was home upstairs. Those souless butchers did this.

Where does the brutality stop in this system ? They will run 600 volts through a teen girls brain with no regard for her wishes... health or anything else, so I don't know where the brutality ends.

This abuse is never ending in those places. No one from the outside really knows what goes on inside. I've seen all sorts of suffering people screaming as the staff removed their clothes forcefully and dragged them across the floor. The Mental Health Act isn't just used for people who are a "danger to society" anymore, all it needs is two naive doctors to agree you have a mental disorder and your in. Any type of behaviour that isn't in the "norm" is classed as a mental disorder and it is enough to lock someone up for months on end. It's revolting and I wish there was something anyone could do to stop it.

Hurricane wrote: It's revolting and I wish there was something anyone could do to stop it.

A history of medical treatments for mental illness, schizophrenia, and other psychiatric disorders, and why those treatments led to the antipsychiatry movement.

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I'm still waiting for a REAL answer as to why we're forced treatment when we want to die. Don't give me any god crap. Church and state are separate for a reason. If somebody is so intent on DYING why stop them? Just because some people might be grateful they're alive, it doesn't mean every suicidal person is going to be happy they're alive. Give me ONE good reason why we're being forced to live.

Type2_bp wrote: Give me ONE good reason why we're being forced to live.

People who jump off bridges to die but survive often report they changed their minds on the way down so I guess the answer is forced to live gives the opportunity to change your mind about death since death is rather permanent.

Type2_bp wrote:I'm still waiting for a REAL answer as to why we're forced treatment when we want to die. Don't give me any god crap. Church and state are separate for a reason. If somebody is so intent on DYING why stop them? Just because some people might be grateful they're alive, it doesn't mean every suicidal person is going to be happy they're alive. Give me ONE good reason why we're being forced to live.

My 2 cents. From what Ive heard is that the illness clouds a persons mind to the point they can not think right. So the wish to commit suicide isn't a well thought out choice, it is the illness talking and not the real them. 2nd Id guess to say that if a person was cured of depression they would later thank the people who helped them from stopping them from suicide. And I do kinda agree with copy cat to... what if you change your mind?

The sad part I see is that intuitions can lock people up, but cant help them. Its this lack of help that pushes people over the edge even more stripping away any hope. All good hospitals focus and healing and respecting the patients. A lot of places don't do that and its the down fall of psychiatry along with society.

I have seen enough abuse, I have heard enough stories of abuse to fill a library. I have been through enough psychiatric malpractice I could wright novel after novel about it. To be blunt I was put through a war crime. I was failed. I was abused. I was covertly brainwashed. A lot of people are failed by the system in droves. Something as simple as sympathy for a person in a state of crisis I did not see. Had I not seen it for myself I wouldn't have believed it.


Fortunately, allowing survivors to speak is the first critical step in real change. I am happy this forum exists were real thought can be put on the subject.

As Montaigne once said, without the freedom to kill yourself, life is slavery.

So what if people change their minds? As far as I'm concerned, death is to be preferred to life. The idea that the person's "illness" has impaired that person's decisional capacity is just contemptible. What illness? Anyway, as I've pointed out before, the very concept of decisional incapacity is meaningless, because it implicitly postulates that there is such a thing as a rational decision maker, a myth disproven in the research of Daniel Kahneman into heuristics (mental shortcuts) and other ways in which we make irrational decisions.

My philosophy is that life is absurd, and that to bring someone into this world is an act of stupidity and ignorance. Why? Because when it goes wrong for you, your parents have to take responsibility. In bestowing the "gift" of life upon some poor sod, you also have to take responsibility for the bad things that happen, and anyway who doesn't understand how cruel and ineffably painful life can be must have led a very sheltered existence, insulated from the pressures and tragic facts of existence.

The facts are, we don't live in a just world. We live in a world where some people are born to suffer, where people are born into circumstances that conspire against their hopes and desires, ensuring they'll always be miserable. For this reason, I believe we have got our customs the wrong way round; it would be more rational to celebrate death and mourn birth.

Cledwyn Bulbs wrote:The facts are, we don't live in a just world. We live in a world where some people are born to suffer, where people are born into circumstances that conspire against their hopes and desires, ensuring they'll always be miserable.

Unfortunately I could see why some reach that conclusion. I know I did when dealing with psychiatry. When I had no voice, when I was trapped, when I felt the very place supposed to help me was not...I did believe at the time suicide was the only way out. Its this exact reason why we need reform in psychiatry. And society in general needs improvement. I find that systems, particularly those that go by a one size fits all do more harm than good. Public education is one example, but at least it has it limits/flexibility to some degree while psychiatric intuitions tend to be the most extreme.


IMO, giving one the freedom to commit suicide is questionable. However, with out a doubt if psychiatry was overhauled to respect, to listen and to provide treatment that actually helped the person... actually valued their own existence to a profound level without question such views would be far, far less. Id say perhaps non existent.


The sad fact I see is so many people who have been burned by psychiatry or just poorly helped by it reach the conclusion suicide is the only way out. Some are trapped in it, id say many are actually sane while others who need a helping hand are punished to the extreme. To me its heartbreaking, a human tragedy . But enough people speaking out will lead to change. Certainly real help to those that need it, and stopping sane people as being treated as insane will do our world good septillions of times over. Suicide would no longer look to be an option. In fact suicide should never be an option.

Just my 2 cents.

Type2_bp wrote:forced to live

The debate about this is on the news again.

The case of Brittany Maynard — the 29-year-old woman with brain cancer electing to undergo physician-assisted suicide Nov. 1 — has made headlines across the country.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Brittany+Maynard
The Brittany Maynard Fund : Working to Make Death with Dignity an Option for All
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPfe3rCcUeQ

From what I understand, 'forced psychiatric treatment' is (supposed to be) performed when a medical professional is aware of a clear and imminent danger to the patient or others that the patient might have contact with, even if they're not identifiable at the time.

The biggest reason (from my understanding) is the threat of litigation in the event that someone does commit suicide/homicide when the medical professional could have prevented it. The Tarasoff case had a big impact on the legal responsibilities of the medical community in response to indications of suicide/homicidal ideations; 'forced admission' and 'alteration of medication dosage' is one of the possible ways for a medical professional to fulfill their legal duty to protect the lives of the patient and anyone else who the patient might harm.

That being said, I am disheartened by the stories I am reading about forced psychiatric treatment. Medical care in general is supposed to be about patients collaborating with their physicians about the treatment. Forced treatment flies in the face of that, yet with the litigation-happy nature in the wake of adverse events I'm not sure how it will be fixed.