Psychiatric Oppression Under Victoria’s Mental Health Laws

Community Treatment Orders in Victoria, Australia deprive people of liberties guaranteed under the UN's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

10
2196
Medical Model vs Social Model of Disability

The medical model of disability problematizes a person’s impairment as “disability” in the realm of normal versus abnormal modes of functioning and stresses medical interventions to restore or enable “normal” functioning.  The medical model places agency in the hands of medical professionals under a “best interests” paradigm where decisions are made through medical lenses to determine the so-called “best outcome” for the patient, without much regard for the patient’s will, preferences or even opposition to treatment.

While moral treatment was prevalent in the Bedlam model of treating psychosocial conditions in the nineteenth century, the medical model was accelerated with the growth of the eugenics movement at the start of the twentieth century, further enabled by the introduction of neuroleptics and other psychoactive medications theorised to “correct” the chemical imbalances in the brains of mentally disordered patients.  Inhumane treatments such as insulin therapy, electro-convulsive therapy (which is still used today) and psychosurgery (such as lobotomies) are emblematic of a medical profession that neither cared for patients nor respected their personhood or rights as neurodiverse individuals.

The legacy of medical model thinking can still be seen in the treatment of mental disorders via a heavy reliance on psychopharmaceutricals (such as antipsychotic medication) that have a large side-effect profile and are based on unproven theories about the biological basis of psychosocial conditions.

Contemporary disability rights rose out of a history of atrocities, abuses and demonization of those with disabilities.  The era of institutionalization, stretching from the early 1400s to as recent as the late 1960s, was marred by a systemic failure to address the needs of the disabled, and, in most cases, pushed those with disabilities to the very fringes of society; housed in conditions akin to torture—cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment.  The approach for much of disability history has been punitive and discriminatory against disabled peoples, excluding them from societal participation and status among equals.

Despite improvements in treatment approaches, disabled peoples are still treated as beneficiaries instead of active participants, subject to colonisation and arbitrary medicalisation by a vast army of professionals.  Over the past three decades, disabled people and their allies have been advocating for greater rights in the backdrop of historical oppression and marginalization, as a response to the over-medicalized and individualist accounts of disability.  Disability was conceived historically as religious (divine punishment), moral (karmic), and biological failings on the part of the disabled individual, leading to over five centuries of social oppression, cultural stigmatisation, and imbedded environmental barriers.

The social model of disability provides a basis for understanding disabling barriers as the main challenge to disabled peoples, while acknowledging that impairment does indeed take part in affecting quality of life.  Notably, disabled peoples are conceived as an oppressed group, where the problem is not located in the disabled person (as per the medical / individual model) but rather in oppressive social forces.  Carlos Thomas has tried to develop the social model to account for impairment effects:

…once the term “disability” is ring-fenced to mean forms of oppressive social reactions visited upon people with impairments, there is no need to deny that impairment and illness cause some restrictions of activity, or that in many situations both disability and impairment effects interact to place limits on activity. (Source)

While medical model thinking depersonalises individuals and focus on a medical solution to “disability,” the social model of disability, which arose out of the disability rights advocacy movement, acknowledges a person’s impairments as a limitation to their ability, while characterizing “disability” as the result of the interaction between persons with impairments and environments that produce physical, attitudinal, communication and social barriers.

The social model therefore reconceptualises disability as limitations resulting from the environment impacting a person’s livelihood and quality of life, which can be altered to accommodate persons with impairments to enable them to participate in society on an equal basis with others.  Agency is placed firmly in an impaired person’s hands, negating the paternalistic and restrictive elements of the medical profession.

In practice, the social model has yet to materialise as the dominant model, as public mental health authorities continue to oppress persons with psychosocial conditions through a combination of punitive and discriminatory laws that are constructed with a “best interests” paradigm in mind and a medical model that pathologises difference and dissent.  Notably, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) has officially adopted the social model of disability and enshrined rights for persons with disabilities on par with all other persons in the community.

Corker conceives of dis/ability as being in relation to other objects of a system, one which modernist materialism has constructed as “impairment” and “non-impairment.”  Research literature shows that the impact of impairment as a physical, sensory or cognitive function, and the impact of social barriers, are difficult to distinguish in theory; in practice, it is the interaction of individual bodies and social environments that produce disability.

The initial conceptualization of community-based rehabilitation (CBR) rose out of an acknowledgement that conventional delivery of disability-related services was inadequate for many in the developing world and that a strategy for service provision would be required to achieve the objectives of improving “the quality of life of the majority of the world’s disabled people,” namely, “those who live in absolute and relative poverty in urban and, especially, rural areas in developing countries.”

Medical model thinking is enshrined in the liberal term “people with disabilities,” and in approaches that seek to count the numbers of people with impairment, or to reduce the complex problems of disabled people to issues of medical prevention, cure or rehabilitation. Social model thinking mandates barrier removal, anti-discrimination legislation, independent living and other responses to social oppression. From a disability rights perspective, social model approaches are progressive, medical model approaches are reactionary. (Source)

The contestation between dis/ability in practice and in policy remains firmly in the scope of Western theorists and Eurocentric norms.  If we begin with the premise that all people are equal and that human rights are indivisible, inalienable and interrelated, then the deprivation of liberty, of choice, and of conscience is thus an inherently immoral, illegal, and illegitimate use of force by state parties.

It is this premise that must inform the disability debate as even highly developed countries with well-established public discourses on the role of disabled peoples in society pursue strategies that seek to legitimate involuntary treatment of disabled peoples in institutions.  UN member states, including developing countries, have an opportunity to move the disability debate forward and create frameworks for equity on the basis of a post-social, post-medical, and post-institutional model of disability.  This rests on a much-needed acceptance that the brutal colonization of disability by an over-medicalized profession has led to centuries of violent oppression.

And it is from this history of oppression that the issue at stake becomes elucidated; the very liberty of an entire generation of disabled peoples.  As Perlin eloquently summates:

At this point, legally, there can be little question that the ball game is over.  The Supreme Court’s decisions in Washington v. Harper, Riggins v. Nevada, and, most recently, Sell v. United States, make it clear that: a qualified right to refuse medication is located in the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause; the pervasiveness of side effects is a key factor in the determination of the scope of the right; the state bears a considerable burden in medicating a patient over objection, and the least restrictive alternative mode of analysis must be applied to right-to-refuse cases.

Medical institutionalism has historically marginalized and eroded the rights of disabled peoples, not only in low to mid income countries as research has indicated, but also, on a well-documented basis, in modern, industrialised and democratic states.  Arbitrary denial of legal capacity, entrenchment of cognitive approaches, rampant forensification, mass detention, psychiatric medicalization and the involuntary treatment of persons with disabilities in facilities without independent oversight have led to widespread abuse, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment amounting, in some cases, to torture.

The active denial of legal capacity, and arbitrary restrictions on liberty, security and integrity of disabled peoples are in direct and explicit contravention to international law and convention, and have pervasively undermined the basic dignity, rights and equality to those whose interests it claims to serve.  Legislation such as the Mental Health Act (England and Wales), Guardianship Act 1987 (New South Wales, Australia), and the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992 (New Zealand), to name a few, overtly and inexcusably violate fundamental tenants of international human rights law. 

In contrast, member states in the EU have demonstrated progress towards harmonizing policy with international convention.  As published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Applebaum concedes that there are “no formal practice guidelines from professional societies for the assessment of a patient’s capacity to consent to treatment.”  The Australian discourse around non-consensual treatment remains resoundingly statist and casually dismissive of international human rights obligations, despite being a signatory and claiming ratification under the UN CRPD.

As Drew et al. and their many contemporaries highlight, the rampant abuse of disabled peoples, including those with psychosocial and related disabilities, often by those in the medical profession who claim to act in their best interests, has necessitated a resounding and uncharacteristically unified response in the form of a renewed advocacy base in the non-governmental sector.

While the medical sector has scrambled to reclaim some form of legitimacy, the decades old argument between the right to refuse and right to access camps has been, with some great difficultly and finality, resolved by process of international agreement, domestic ratification and proactive representation.  The historical threshold for medicating disabled peoples against their will, at times with untested, untried and inhumane procedures, to an extent far beyond that of those for biophysical conditions, no longer passes for ethical medicine.

The closest-to-viable mode to a neoliberal solution would be the consumerist / empowering model.  The professional is viewed as a service provider to the client and their family, and the client decides what services are or are not appropriate.  Unlike the medical / expert model, the client is not a passive recipient.

The Empowerment model avoids emphasis on or direction toward cure. It focuses not on their label/s but their personhood regardless of the label/s that are experienced as integrated into, containing or constraining that personhood.

The imposition of solutions made by professionals can be less than benevolent where the client has no choice and is unable to exercise basic human rights; this is evidenced by the motivation behind the biomedical model, which seeks to establish a “perfect world [that] is a world without disability.” Notably, “the biomedical model results in categorical devaluation” of persons with disabilities by perceiving disabled peoples as their impairment.  Furthermore, medical models view disabled peoples as requiring “fixing” with the political goal of entrenching the medical model as the sole legitimate basis for policy making, much like the Eugenics projects of the early twentieth century.

In the Economic Model of Disability, responsibility attribution is shifted to employers (to not discriminate), similarly, the Consumerist model ensures that decision-making responsibility remains with the client and their family and not subject to “professional tyranny.”  From a market-oriented perspective, the purchase of services is based on a contractually equitable relationship, where the client can sever the relationship with compensation if the services are not to the client’s preference.  The professional as a service provider role should understand their role as a “consultant, coach and resource provider” ensuring that the decision-making is carried out by the client and their family.  This is visualised below:

Situation Charity Model Medical Model Social Model Rights-based Model
Young women using a wheelchair “What a pity, this beautiful woman is bound to a wheelchair, she’ll never be able to marry, have children and care for her family.” “Oh, this poor woman, she should go to a doctor and discuss with him if there is a therapy which could enable her to walk again, like everybody else.” “The community really should build ramps in front of public buildings, so that persons like her can participate in social life.” “When she gets a job, her employer will have to build accessible rooms. This is her right!”
Man with an intellectual disability “Look at this poor confused man; he seems to be mentally retarded, it would be better for him to live in a fostered home, where somebody will take care of him.” “Perhaps there is some medicine or treatment which could improve his perception. He should try a psychiatrist.” “It’s a good solution that he lives with his brother, so he is surrounded by non-disabled people.” “Where does he want to live? Let’s go and ask him!”
Parents with a hearing-impaired daughter “It must be very sad having a child and knowing that she will never be able to live on her own.” “I’m sure in a few years there’ll be a hearing aid available which will make this child able to hear better.” “We should all learn sign language, so that we can communicate with this child and all other hearing-impaired people.” “When this child grows up, she’ll study at university, if she wants to.”
Community Treatment Orders (CTOs) in Victoria, Australia

With the introduction of Community Treatment Orders (CTOs) in 1986 in Victoria, medical treatment for psychosocial conditions have been securitised under the Mental Health Act.  Police, paramedics and medical personnel are given extensive powers to detain, assess and treat persons with psychosocial conditions or appearing to have psychosocial conditions, in a manner that violates common law presumptions of innocence and negates limits on detention that are well-established within the criminal system of justice.

While CTOs are civil instruments of law, they authorise deprivations of liberty normally associated with criminal convictions or findings of guilt in criminal courts. Detention in hospital facilities via a treatment or assessment order can feature elements of chemical, emotional or physical restraint and even seclusion, which parallels the approach used by penal institutions to impose solitary confinement as a security measure against physically violent inmates.

Arguably, there are more stringent standards of evidence for criminal matters (“beyond reasonable doubt”) in the context of any deprivation of liberty compared to the civil standard of “balance of probabilities.”

CTOs were designed in response for the push to advance de-institutionalisation and it was thought that persons with psychosocial conditions could be managed in the community with greater respect for their autonomy, although this has not been the case, given the implementation of compulsory treatment regimes.  CBR was thought to increase patient autonomy, while offering a pathway of symptom and pathology management through mandatory treatment regimens to prevent a “revolving-door” phenomena often claimed by psychiatrists and others in the medical sector who are in favour of compulsory treatment.

The oft-heard position from the medical sector is that CTOs allow a degree of freedom that would otherwise be restricted by in-patient detention of persons with serious psychosocial conditions.  However, this has little support from actual evidence, as there is no empirical basis to assume that those who are treated on CTOs would otherwise be treated in hospital settings.  Randomised studies conducted on the efficacy of CTOs demonstrate that they have little effect on clinical outcomes.

Nonetheless, the argument is still used by compulsory treatment proponents to create an illusion of autonomy while resituating agency into the hands of medical (often psychiatric) staff.

The Mental Health Act (2014) is the newest iteration of mental health laws designed to enforce compulsory treatments on persons with mental illness.  Mental illness is specifically defined in the Act as a “significant disturbance of thought, mood, perception or memory” and excludes intellectual disabilities.

Despite the insistence of Parliament that the Act serves to protect the rights of consumers, the introduction of advance directives, second psychiatric opinions, nominated persons and a statement of rights have not, in any meaningful way, addressed the issue of substituted decision making by authorised psychiatrists against the wills and preferences of a person found to have a mental illness.  The authorised psychiatrist holds all the agency in the service-provider-consumer relationship and engages in an almost adversarial approach that pathologises opposition to compulsory treatment itself as a symptom of mental illness (or lack of insight).

While the Act operates in a supposedly civil arena, the overriding power of the authorised psychiatrist to impose compulsory treatment in the community with the threat of hospitalisation (i.e. detention) is enforced in a way akin to the role of parole officers in the criminal justice system.  What crime has a mentally ill person committed (assuming they are not a forensic patient)?  Is the opposition to or non-compliance to medical treatment a crime?  Not in the strictest sense, but the punitive penalties imposed by the Act does result in quasi-criminal outcomes for mentally ill persons.

Medical treatment in the context of compulsory treatment not only encompasses forced medication (via psychopharmaceuticals), but is often accompanied by invasive testing (blood screening for medication plasma levels) or injection regimes (of antipsychotic depot medication), an invasion of privacy (by members of an assertive care team supervising treatment) and mandatory meetings with public mental health authorities.  The Act also empowers the police to enter the homes of persons under compulsory treatment and transport them to a mental health facility.

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is the only disability-focused international human rights convention.  General comments and guidance from the committee specifically refer to the incompatibility of substitute-decision making regimes, involuntary commitment or detention in mental health facilities and compulsory treatment in the community.

The CRPD reconceptualises disability using the social model of disability and further builds on this model with the human rights-based model of disability, which situates persons with disabilities as autonomous individuals with rights and freedoms and not as welfare cases or problems that need to be “fixed” by medical authorities.  Accessibility is framed as a right or an option that persons with disabilities can elect to engage, with the obligation for providing these services through progressive realization resting in state bodies.

Following on the model established by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), negative rights are immediately applicable and enforceable and state parties have an immediate obligation to grant these rights.  To this end, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has recommended that Australia immediately withdraw its interpretative declaration and repeal all legislation that permits involuntary commitment, substitute decision making (i.e. Guardianship Orders) and compulsory treatment in the community.

The need for strong social protection systems to be inclusive of those who are often forgotten in policymaking, including those with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities, is undoubtedly relevant for provision of support services.  However, the tension between right to refuse and right to access proponents continues to not only medical institutions, where disabled peoples are often subject to discrimination, abuse, stigmatisation, and an arbitrary restriction of rights.

It is worth noting that the “traditional disability-welfare approaches under the medical model de facto promoted inequality among the diversity of persons with disabilities by adopting legislation that benefited certain groups of persons with disabilities while excluding others.”  This includes the deprivation of legal capacity faced by disabled peoples and their struggle to accessing their right to social protection.

Ultimately, this responsibility lies with state parties, who, under international obligations to comply with human rights laws and convention, must ensure that policy implementation does not violate disability rights, where legal capacity, consent to treatment, and inclusivity are paramount to the individual dignity, autonomy and the principles of non-discrimination.

While the cruelty of such practices as seclusion, restraint (chemical, physical, emotional), sedation, the arbitrary denial of legal capacity, violation of physical and mental integrity, and other forms of non-consensual medicalization continue to pervade in clear defiance of the international community’s commitment to uphold human rights principles for disabled peoples, the need for greater oversight, advocacy, representation, and compliance monitoring of State Parties is greater now than ever.

This is reflected in the Report of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities. With the signing and ratification of the CRPD and inclusion of disabled peoples in decision-making processes at the international level, there may be cause for celebration as the rights-based approach replaces the medical model, especially on issues pertaining to the right to security of the individual, autonomy and self-determination.

***

Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.

***

Mad in America has made some changes to the commenting process. You no longer need to login or create an account on our site to comment. The only information needed is your name, email and comment text. Comments made with an account prior to this change will remain visible on the site.

10 COMMENTS

  1. If I were to realize a walk-about in Australia, could a citizen with a dis-ability be found in an entrepreneurial role? Your models do not include that category as an option, not the government workers who would understand that role, not the community that Would embrace the markets that affirms the exchange from people. Artificial intelligence jumped ahead while leaving us out. Would the architect and planners be shaping the space as a design challenge? Elected people shaping the policy, if they cater to Monroe’s in the coffers? And would the banking community finance the models that have this potential human expression present in all forms of public transportation? Nothing is more oppressive than a government that lacks policy that affirms life. The sheer hypocrisy in invoking the rhetoric and vitrol of pro-life vs pro-choice, anti-abortion misses the act of being socially aborted, especially when we begin the forced treatments that take us out of life. Or the danger of fire from poorly managed and manipulated ecosystems. Great insight Alex!

    Report comment

  2. Thank you Alex,

    CTO’S
    A recent Article in Jama Psychiatry from Mark Howoritz, (Sir) Robin Murray, and David Taylor, Scientifically contradicts in my opinion – the use of CTOs.

    VERY SLOW AS OPPOSED TO ABRUPT TAPER
    The article recommends a Slow Neuroleptic Tapering approach. And “Neuroleptic Withdrawal Induced Psychosis” is acknowledged as a problem / as opposed to “Abrupt Medication Discontinuation Relapse”.

    CTO ABRUPT NEUROLEPTIC TAPER
    Since most attempted Neuroleptic Withdrawals fall into an Abrupt Category, then these failed Withdrawals do not indicate “Relapse or Return of Illness” but “Problems with Drug Withdrawal”.

    THE ARTICLE
    https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/12/withdrawal-from-antipsychotics/#

    Horowitz, Murray, and Taylor write,

    “…As there is some evidence that not all patients need lifelong antipsychotic treatment and some may have improved social functioning when taking less or no antipsychotic, cautious deprescribing should be a component of high-quality prescribing practice….”

    ABRUPT TAPER VERSUS VERY SLOW TAPER
    My own MH Records reflect:- 4 Hospitalizations a Suicide Attempt and “A Near Miss” in 5 Months, following the Permission to withdraw Abruptly from a Fluphenazine Depot Injection ; and 36 Years of Continual Wellness following my own decision to Taper Very Carefully.

    ALSO NEEDED…
    In my own case a Very Careful Neuroleptic Taper wasn’t enough, I still need to gain an understanding of how my “Neuroleptic Withdrawal High Anxiety” “Worked” and “What I could do about it”.

    Report comment

  3. The nature of the auto correct, changed “more money” to Monroe. (Perhaps the machine is hinting at the Monroe Doctrine?, the attack against the US by the US = insanity) And I suspect other countries have through law, are creating these cases, just waiting for the class action lawsuits, singularly and collectively.

    Report comment

    • In the United States, “pill shaming” and “forced drugging” are one and the same. The only way to true well-being is to just walk-away from the whole medical/psychiatry fraud. One more point. The listing of the four different models and their comparisons is quite illuminating. However, I think the “right-based” model might be named instead the “freedom to be true to oneself” model. In my opinion, this is the only decent model that really upholds the dignity of each person. It is also the most compassionate. Thank you.

      Report comment

  4. This is an interesting article. I expected it to concentrate on the obviously overboard rights violations of the Australian system (at least Victoria’s) and perhaps delve into the criminal motivations that might lie behind it. But instead it spends most of its text in praise of the “social model” of care.

    Under current circumstances, the “social model” is probably more desirable. What you want (it seems to me) is a situation where no intervention or treatment will occur unless a person requests it. And additionally, a mechanism must exist to allow someone to pull out of treatment if he/she feels it is of no benefit. This, by the way, could also be called a “free market” model. Except that in most countries today, the taxpayers are expected to pick up the tab for any type of social service.

    But by ignoring the complicity of MDs – and those forces which helped to create the current level of power that we bestow on MDs – no real understanding of the situation, or a way out of it, is accomplished.

    The power structure can make almost any of these models “work” if the general population can be convinced, by various forms of persuasion and deception, to accept them. Even in the best case, the problem for the individual remains “how do I get something broken fixed?” And a power structure can take advantage of people simply by hiding the most workable technologies from them and promoting their own as “the best” in a way that makes them the only ones realistically available, even though they don’t work.

    The current trend is towards the criminalization of all unwanted activity. This has gone so overboard in recent times that it currently includes making it “illegal” to operate certain types of businesses that contribute to society and enable business people to feed their families without asking the taxpayers for help. This drives everyone towards dependency on government, and thus on those who finance government, for life itself.

    It seems to me that a viable way forward goes far beyond sorting out which “model” is the “best” and points in the direction of reigning in the power of MDs, and of criminals of all sorts, and learning how to reassert the supremacy of honesty and morality on this planet.

    Report comment

  5. There is something about this article which just doesn’t sit right with me. I’ll do my best to explain why, and hopefully someone can explain what it is I am not seeing.

    The article speaks about “persons with disabilities” (PwDs) but then takes it as given that these PwDs are engaged in a doctor/patient relationship.

    I can be a PwD but NOT be a “patient”? Surely just because I am in a wheelchair does not mean I am engaged in a doctor/patient relationship? I can be blind but not require the services of a doctor?

    So here lies my problem. I get it that if I were a PwD in a wheelchair AND in a doctor/patient relationship that the doctor could take me to a cliff face and wheel me off and call it ‘medical care’ or ‘help’, and that my recourse in the law would be civil action (because of the doctor/patient relationship the matter is NOT a criminal one. See above). He could defend his actions by claiming that just because I can’t walk, maybe if they throw me at the ground and I miss, I can fly. Fairly recognizable logic for anyone who has been exposed to psychiatric services.

    But what about the situation where I am wheeling myself down the street and a doctor notices my ‘disability’ and takes me to a cliff face and wheels me off? I AM a PwD, but I had not entered a relationship with this doctor other than to be unfortunate enough to pass him/her in the street, and therefore the matter is a criminal one where there has been an assault on my person.

    Of course in my State the police recognising that you are in a wheelchair would also know that this means they can not find their copy of the Criminal Code, and that they will give doctor time to go and tamper with the paperwork and make you into a “patient” so that the matter becomes a civil one.

    This discrimination by police allowing doctors the ability to unintentionally negatively outcome people in the Emergency Dept before anyone notices that the matters were criminal and NOT civil.

    This was of course the problem faced by the people who tortured and kidnapped me, I was NOT a “patient” by definition of the Mental Health Act, and therefore the means used to get me the ‘help’ I didn’t require, for an illness I didn’t have were criminal matters. Police by retrieving the proof of the crimes and allowing them time to make some ‘alternative arrangements’ and “edit” the legal narrative to suit made the matters become ‘civil matters’. Murdering someone on the street a crime, doing it in the Emergency Dept it becomes something police find that it “might be best they don’t know about” and is a ‘civil matter’.

    So basically, and I ask this in all sincerity, the situation is one where PwDs can be slaughtered despite not being in the care of a doctor/patient relationship and police will look the other way because these are ‘civil matters’? Or at least as I have explained on numerous occasions the documents can be “edited” to take the matters outside the criminal realm and made into ‘civil matters’ post hoc? (care to see the “edited” documents and the ‘legal protection’ being afforded by our Chief Psychiatrist? Contact me).

    I guess my point relates to the fact that I may have been considered a PwD but was NOT a “patient”. Does this mean that any member of the community can then engage in what ARE criminal acts against me, and police will deny me my rights as a citizen (Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires states parties to ensure that persons with disabilities “enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life”. For example not being ‘spiked’ with benzos and tortured for refusing to speak to a psychologist or murdered in a hospital and calling it an unintended negative outcome because they won’t get a lawyer to bring civil action against a doctor, and police will look the other way, nay in fact will assist by delivering the person for the ‘treatment’).

    This makes the Office of the Chief Psychiatrist look like the Office of Jewish Affairs under Adolf Eichmann. Surely we haven’t regressed to that state yet? Perhaps some clever person here would care to go through the complaint lodged with the Chief Psychiatrist and his response? Because to me if the person who is charged with protecting our human rights doesn’t know what the protections are, there is a serious problem. Protecting psychologists who are arranging ‘spikings’ and kidnappings by allowing the “editing” of legal narratives seems a little …….. discriminatory and arbitrary.

    And do keep in mind that it is difficult to bring civil action (lower burden of proof, but not a chance you will find any assistance) for a ‘mistake’ under the Assisted Dying Act, especially when your outcomed, and the documents can be “edited” post hoc. Not a lawyer in town would provide any assistance bringing action against a doctor. They would be ‘fuking destroyed’.

    And I also note that with mental health services the drugs actually cause the disability. Imagine, I can show you how to disable someone before they even get the chance to be assessed by a psychiatrist (see the use of a ‘chemical restraint’ by an Authorised Mental Health Practitioner in a police station to ‘coerce’), and then once in their ‘care’ well….. the sky really is the limit.

    Report comment

    • “The so-called lack of capacity is itself used to deny legal capacity, specifically when a person refuses treatment or there is a perception of danger to self or to others (Bartlett, 2003;Glover-Thomas, 2011;McSherry and Wilson, 2011). It is also worth noting that mental and legal capacity are notions often muddled in many professionals’ minds.”

      This quote from one of the articles linked to above seems to explain some of what I am saying.

      The claim that my ‘mental capacity’ was insufficient (ie I disagreed with my wife and thus lack mental capacity [which seems strange, she is the one with the milk crate full of psychiatric drugs]) means that any legal right to bodily integrity or right to liberty no longer exists. So at that point I can be ‘spiked’ with benzos and subjected to hours of torture and kidnapped because I no longer maintain my legal capacity (ie police can’t find their copy of the Criminal Code and these serious criminal offences are now considered ‘civil matters’ because a psychologists name is in the mix somewhere) Not that I was a “patient” or anything, we didn’t even know if my ‘mental capacity’ was actually affected. I was simply transported (kidnapped) to find out if it was (ie asssessment by a psychiatrist finds no mental illness) and …… phew, it wasn’t. Shame my life had to be ‘fuking destroyed’ for that though.

      So my legal capacity has not actually been removed, these were of course crimes, and my mental capacity was deemed fine and dandy once they tortured and kidnapped me. Unfortunately police find their involvement by providing the Community Nurse with a referral a little embarrassing because of their interrogation of me whilst I was stupefied without my knowledge with a date rape drug and so………they find it much more convenient to work with the criminals (we can call them public officers if you will but their actions are those of criminals) ad openly discriminate against me whilst I am murdered in an Emergency Dept.

      Even more fortunate are the levels of threats and intimidation that witnesses and the victim can be subjected to (despite this being refoulment under the Convention).

      The actions of police in these matters is possibly more disgusting than anything done by mental health services, the equivalent of the cop who handed back a victim to Jeffrey Dahmer, or the way that Jamal Kashoggi received his ‘paperwork’ at the Saudi Consulate in Turkey. But where do you turn when you have been tortured by police and mental health services? Not the Attorney General, he hands you back to the torturers and suggests your a nutjob. Not the Human Rights Commission, the discrimination by police denying you your rights nowhere near as important than ensuring that a gay person can have a wedding cake baked by a discriminatory baker. Sorry, they’re way too busy to worry about citizens (especially disabled ones) being killed in hospitals for convenience.

      The documents I have show I had both my mental and legal capacity, neither ever removed from me. These criminals set me up to create the appearance I had no legal capacity, and then tried to have my mental capacity removed. When I pointed out that I actually had a legal right to not be treated in this manner, they doubled down and began a process of ‘fuking destroying’ me using the fraud and slander of mental health services, DESPITE being fully aware that what they were doing was criminal.

      I wonder how many others have been murdered in this manner. I do hope someone had the ability to recognise that what I am saying could be true, despite the slander I have been subjected to. The two are not necessarily related, and my mental capacity has certainly been affected by being subjected to years of psychological torture (commonly referred to as gaslighting) by State sanctioned actors.

      Report comment

LEAVE A REPLY