Update 12/2014 — Torture is approved of by most Americans reports the Washington Post today. This surprises many people…. There is no surprise here. We as a people support the heinous treatment of people all over the world and then we also use such treatment and call it medicine. This stuff runs deep into our psyches, clearly.
Did you know the United Nations has declared forced psychiatric treatment torture? We are a country that utilizes torture in the name of medical care as well as using it against those we call enemies.
A friend of mine made this comment: “This is an important connection to make. The way one sees one thing is the way one sees everything, generally. Or, as Brene Brown says, you can’t selectively numb.”
I’ve actually quoted Brown on the blog with this comment before.
***
It’s actually been said before. Maybe this time someone other than the victims will listen.
Human rights are being violated everyday in the USA and all over the world in the name of psychiatry yet hardly anyone cares or believes it’s happening at all.
The UN came out with a report that states that forced psychiatric care passes the threshold of maltreatment to TORTURE.
Yes.
Summary
The present report focuses on certain forms of abuses in health-care settings that may cross a threshold of mistreatment that is tantamount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It identifies the policies that promote these practices and existing protection gaps.By illustrating some of these abusive practices in health-care settings, the report sheds light on often undetected forms of abusive practices that occur under the auspices of health-care policies, and emphasizes how certain treatments run afoul of the prohibition on torture and ill-treatment. It identifies the scope of State‟s obligations to regulate, control and supervise health-care practices with a view to preventing mistreatment under any pretext.
The Special Rapporteur examines a number of the abusive practices commonly reported in health-care settings and describes how the torture and ill-treatment framework applies in this context. The examples of torture and ill-treatment in health settings discussed likely represent a small fraction of this global problem.
And from the body of the report:
For example, the mandate has held that the discriminatory character of forced psychiatric interventions, when committed against persons with psychosocial disabilities, satisfies both intent and purpose required under the article 1 of the Convention against Torture, notwithstanding claims of “good intentions” by medical professionals (ibid., paras. 47, 48). (the PDF file here)
Update: More from Mad in America: UNITED NATIONS CALLS FOR BAN ON FORCED PSYCH TREATMENT
In a statement to a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 4, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment called for a ban on forced psychiatric interventions including forced drugging, shock, psychosurgery, restraint and seclusion, and for repeal of laws that allow compulsory mental health treatment and deprivation of liberty based on disability, including when it is motivated by “protection of the person or others.” SEE THE PDF
If you’re not aware of just how brutal and coercive psychiatry can be, it’s well worth understanding. Some of it is so extreme it’s hard for those uninitiated to conceive of but, sadly, it’s very common. The bottom line is psychiatry, in general, at best, is subtly coercive. Drugs are generally presented as necessary rather than one, often far less than ideal, possibility for treatment. This means one is made to believe through somewhat more subtle coercion that they have no choice but to take drugs with very dangerous adverse effects that include disabling physical illness and very early death.
The banality of evil-accounts for what happens in psychiatry.Ppl who accept premises they’ve been taught& so bear witness to horror in peace
— Monica Cassani (@BeyondMeds) March 8, 2013
Ask yourself are you complicit in such crimes? Most people who take part in social services and psychiatric services or mental health care in general are. Some more than others, of course. Wake up.
I’ve written a response to this a few days after I published this piece: In honor of the woman I witnessed being tortured in a psych ward
Consider alternatives:
The Mental (Illness) system and thoughts on alternatives: a collection
More on forced treatment:
● Forced treatment isn’t the answer
● Forced Psychotropic Drugs, Assertive Community Treatment, (in-home forced treatment)
● WNUSP statement on the Implications of the CRPD on Forced Treatment
● The chill of forced incarceration and psychiatric “care” (otherwise known as gun control??)
● Demands that it be easier to involuntarily commit the mentally ill are knee-jerk and irrational
● Robert Whitaker’s response to E. Fuller Torrey. About the rationale for forced psychiatric treatment
The banality of evil-accounts for what happens in psychiatry. People who accept premises they’ve been taught& so bear witness to horror in peace
— Monica Cassani (@BeyondMeds) March 8, 2013
For a multitude of ideas about how to create a life filled with safe alternatives to psychiatric drugs visit the drop-down menus at the top of this page.
Support Everything Matters. Enter Amazon via a link from this blog and do the shopping you’d be doing anyway. No need to purchase the book the link takes you to or make a donation with PayPal. Thank you!
Everything Matters 
You must be logged in to post a comment.