Two years ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a 300-page document titled “Guidance to Community Health Services” that called for a paradigm shift in psychiatric care, with the biomedical model replaced by one that promoted “Person-Centred and Rights-Based Approaches.” In our MIA Report on that publication, we described it as a call for “radical change in global mental health.”

That guidance came from a group at the WHO led by Michelle Funk, head of the Policy, Law, and Human Rights unit at the WHO Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse. It was a bold document, and one that we at Mad in America celebrated, as it set forth an agenda for rethinking psychiatric care that was, in so many ways, consonant with the call for change that has motivated us since we founded our webzine more than a decade ago.

In October, the WHO and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights jointly published a lengthy document, Mental Health, Human Rights, and Legislation, that, at least at first glance, could be seen as a welcome follow-up to its 2021 report, with this one providing guidance for enacting legislation that would create “person-centred, recovery-oriented and rights-based mental health systems.” But once I read it, I had a different take: This is much more than a call for a “paradigm shift” in mental health care. It is a full-throated call for liberty and freedom for those that historically have been called “mad” (and today are deemed “seriously mentally ill”).

Indeed, as I read the document, my thoughts flitted to other great declarations of freedom and liberty in English/American history: the Magna Carta, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The WHO document, if could be boiled down to a succinct two-pager, makes this declaration: Forced treatment is a gross violation of human rights, and laws that allow for people to be locked up against their will and forcibly treated must be struck down and replaced with legislation that protects their rights to be free from such coercion.

This is a call that challenges how psychiatry is practiced today and ultimately challenges its power in society. Psychiatry asserts that it has the medical authority to deem certain people “mentally ill,” and that such people can be forcibly treated because they suffer from “anosognosia” and thus lack awareness that they are ill and in need of treatment. That assertion is what gives psychiatry and society a moral fig leaf for locking people up and injecting them with a powerful antipsychotic against their will: Such treatment is for the person’s own good.

However, with this publication, the WHO and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights are stating, with great clarity: no more. Forced treatment should be understood as a gross violation of human rights and must end. 

The Radical CRPD

The most radical element in the WHO’s 2021 document was its embrace of the 2008 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as a governing principle for radical reform. The CRPD declared that people with disabilities should enjoy the same rights and fundamental freedoms as everyone else, and, in essence, declared that forced treatment and forced hospitalization should end.

In 2020, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture took up the issue of forced treatment in psychiatry. Such interventions, the rapporteur wrote, “generally involve highly discriminatory and coercive attempts at controlling or ‘correcting’ the victim’s personality, behaviour or choices and almost always inflict severe pain or suffering. In the view of the Special Rapporteur, therefore, if all other defining elements are given, such practices may well amount to torture.”

The 2021 WHO report echoed that sentiment. It noted that although more than 180 countries had ratified the CRPD, few had adopted standards that met the CRPD call to create “services free of coercion.” The WHO authors wrote:

The perceived need for coercion is built into mental health systems, including in professional education and training, and is reinforced through national mental health and other legislation. Coercive practices are pervasive and are increasingly used in services in countries around the world, despite the lack of evidence that they offer any benefits, and the significant evidence that they lead to physical and psychological harm and even death. People subjected to coercive practices report feelings of dehumanization, disempowerment, being disrespected and disengaged from decisions on issues affecting them. Many experience it as a form of trauma or re-traumatization leading to a worsening of their condition and increased experiences of distress. Coercive practices also significantly undermine people’s confidence and trust in mental health service staff, leading people to avoid seeking care and support as a result. The use of coercive practices also has negative consequences on the well-being of the professionals using them.

The United States, for its part, is one of the few countries in the United Nations that has not ratified the CRPD. Forced treatment is ingrained into the system here, with a standard for locking up a person against his or her will that is quite fungible: a person simply needs to be deemed a danger to self or others. And with the expansion of Assisted Outpatient Treatment, this coercion can now follow a person into the community. Forced treatment is on the march in the United States, with psychiatry as its bandleader, and that is true in many other countries as well.

The CRPD as the Normative Standard

In the WHO’s October report, Michelle Funk and her coauthors, drawing on the collective input from human rights activists around the globe, stated that compliance with the CRPD should be the legislative goal of all countries:

The CRPD reinforces the protection of international standards of human rights in mental health care and recognizes that the rights of persons with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities are equal to those of any person. The CRPD creates an enabling legal environment from which to develop rights-based mental health systems that prioritize a person’s empowerment and active participation in their own recovery.

This publication, prepared jointly by WHO and OHCHR, is a call to action to realize such a vision. It offers a blueprint for laws that promote human rights in mental health, supports legal and attitudinal change, and encourages reforms that protect the rights of all persons interacting with mental health systems. It proposes steps towards establishing mental health services that are respectful of human dignity and comply with international human rights norms and standards.

With that CRPD framework in place, numerous passages in the WHO document make the case for an end to forced treatment, and do so as a call for “liberty and freedom” for all. Here is a selection of such passages:

From a section on “international human rights law”:

All persons should be able to exercise their right to give free and informed consent to accept or reject treatment in mental health systems. Denial of legal capacity, coercive practices and institutionalization must end. To date, 187 countries and the European Union have ratified the CRPD and are thus legally bound to replace harmful practices with community-based services and support structures that enable the full exercise of human rights.

From a section on the “case against coercion”:

From a human rights perspective, coercive practices in mental health care contradict international human rights law, including the CRPD. They conflict with the right to equal recognition before the law, and protection under the law, through the denial of the individual’s legal capacity. Coercive practices violate a person’s right to liberty and security, which is a fundamental human right. They also contradict the right to free and informed consent and, more generally, the right to health.

Coercion can inflict severe pain and suffering on a person, and have long-lasting physical and mental health consequences which can impede recovery and lead to substantial trauma and even death. Moreover, the right to independent living and inclusion in the community is violated when coercive practices result in institutionalization or any other form of marginalization.

Coercive practices in mental health care violate the right to be protected from torture or cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, which is a non-derogable right.

From a section on the “legal capacity” of people with disabilities:

Legal capacity is a precondition for the exercise of rights and for making autonomous health care decisions . . . Article 12 of the CRPD recognizes that all persons with disabilities, including those with psychosocial disabilities, enjoy the right to exercise their legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all areas of life. Accordingly, a person’s “mental capacity” cannot be the basis for denial of legal capacity. People should have the right to make legally-binding decisions and, if wanted, be provided with access to the support they may require in exercising their legal capacity, including formal and informal support. According to the CRPD States, Parties have an obligation to replace all forms of substitute decision-making, such as guardianship, curatorship, and conservatorship, with supported decision-making schemes.

From a section on “liberty and security of person”:

The mental health legislation of most countries authorizes the deprivation of a person’s liberty based either on a mental health diagnosis or impairment, or in combination with other factors, most commonly when the individual presents an alleged risk to self or others, or is deemed in need of care. Article 14 of the CRPD reaffirms that persons with disabilities enjoy the right to liberty and security on an equal basis with others, and clarifies that “the existence of a disability shall in no case justify a deprivation of liberty.” The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has stressed that Article 14 establishes an absolute ban on deprivation of liberty based on impairment, thereby precluding all forms of involuntary commitment to mental health facilities, including on the basis of “dangerousness” or “need of care.”

From a section on “free and informed consent”:

Currently, most mental health laws continue to restrict the right to free and informed consent for the treatment of persons with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities, and favour substitute decision-making.

Article 25(d) of the CRPD provides that States Parties ensure that health care for persons with disabilities is provided on the basis of free and informed consent; Article 15 stipulates that no one shall be subjected to medical or scientific experimentation without their free consent. Involuntary treatment has been interpreted as being a violation not only of the right to health, but also of legal capacity (Article 12), freedom from torture and ill-treatment (Article 15), freedom from violence, exploitation and abuse (Article 16), and personal integrity (Article 17). A fundamental shift is needed to create an enabling legal framework for the development of mental health services that respect the rights of all service users and base all treatment decisions on the free and informed consent of the individual.

From a section on “living independently”:

Historically, persons with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities have been subjected to practices of segregation, institutionalization and isolation in mental health and social care.

Article 19 of the CRPD recognizes the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live independently and be included in the community. This involves a person exercising freedom of choice and control over the decisions affecting their life, with the maximum level of self-determination and independence within society (153). Accordingly, persons with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities must have the opportunity to choose how, where, and with whom to live, on an equal basis with others, without being obliged to live in a particular living arrangement, such as an institutional setting.

From a section on “access to justice”:

Access to justice for persons with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities has commonly been restricted, affecting their right to a fair trial and denying them the possibility to contest arbitrary detention, forced treatment and abuses in mental health services. Examples include laws that restrict a person’s right to file a complaint or stand trial; diversion from criminal, civil and administrative processes resulting in deprivation of liberty, forced treatment and institutionalization; lack of credibility; ineffective remedies; and lack of legal aid. These compounded barriers leave persons with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities without effective access to justice, increasing their risk of abuse and neglect within mental health services and beyond, and rendering them significantly overrepresented in the criminal justice system.

Such is the spirited language of liberty and freedom in the recent publication by the WHO and the United Nations. The publication is a powerful call to enact laws that will protect the basic rights of those that societies call “mad.” They have a right to be the authors of their own lives, and to not be subject to a loss of liberty for reason of their being deemed a danger to self or others. Indeed, after reading this publication, I was reminded of the promise present in the Declaration of Independence, which the founders of the United States penned on July 4, 1776:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

The great struggle in American history has been to extend that promise to all citizens, to women and to African Americans, and this recent document is in that vein: The promise of liberty needs to be extended to those deemed “mad.” Forced treatment is a wrongful taking of liberty, and the U.S. and all countries need to see it as such.

Or, as the title of this essay states, “Let Freedom Ring for the Mad.”

 

23 COMMENTS

  1. Bob,
    I believe, at least part of the problem is all our laws are really about protecting us and polite society from the messiness and ugliness and uncomfortableness, etc of mental struggles. We don’t like the ugliness of the homeless situation and so we scoop them off the streets and put them out of sight. We don’t like members of the family who struggle so we drug them into submission and compliance of ‘norms’ or if we ‘must’, we hospitalize them for their ‘own good.’

    If I had done that to my wife, it would have been so much easier on me these last 16 years, and I would have had the blessings of society and honestly of my family. My wife tells me the reason my book about our healing journey is bombing is because people want to be selfish…and my wife’s mental distress and struggles…really cost me a lot to walk with her in the way she needed to deeply heal. She knows it. Just like my cancer costs my wife a lot, and I know it.

    But for some reason it’s acceptable and more noble when it’s cancer for the spouse to join the healing journey. Everyone gets to talk about it and share it on Facebook. The cancer patient gets prayers and affirmation and the spouse gets to share and also get affirmed. And my agency is NEVER questioned, no matter what route I choose to treat my cancer, or even if I would choose to ignore it like my younger brother who quickly died of his cancer…but he was immortalized and lionized by my family as a pillar of faith and virtue, sigh…but not so when it’s mental health issues. We really just want them to stop being snowflakes and get with it and move on…or as my Christian friends and families quip, ‘lay it at the cross of Jesus’…so they can try to move forward and project normalcy even if they are dying inside…

    Sadly, I just don’t see things changing until we address the fundamental selfishness we ALL have…until I figured out how to harness my own selfishness and try to shoot for a win/win for me and my wife…it was a real struggle in our own journey…idk…just thinking out loud…
    Sam

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    • Respectfully and trying to be appreciative, maybe the messiness, ugliness and uncomfortableness of mental struggles are not outside, but in using those words?.

      Like we all are struggling to put into appropiate, appreciative, non harmfull words and statements the fact that the messiness, ugliness and uncomfortableness is not in the person labeled something, but on the labeler.

      The struggle within, not out there. Out there is the ugliness of the street, for instance, but is it within the individual or comunity living on the street?.

      And I can put some grounding in my question by invoking the lack of accurate description when using the word “ugly”. What does that mean in a homeless individual?.

      So, some of those words are on the eye of the beholder, I guess that’s why the use of “mental illness”, to pass the mess from within, to outside.

      A wash out of one “messiness”, and yes, perhaps ugliness, and the discomfort that may or may not come from perceiving that is within, and not outside.

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    • I’m sorry about your cancer, Sam, and would still love to meet you and your wife in real life some day. I think that the “fundamental selfishness” to which you refer, actually relates to “the love of money is the root of all evil” problem, mentioned in the Holy Bible.

      But that may be because my family’s most recent difficulties relate to a family farm sale, and the love of money, of which, “while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

      Or so it currently seems … but some evils, or lack thereof, you don’t even want to know all about in your waking hours. I think your wife and you may understand? But I think most of us want to live in a just world, instead of the insanely sick and greedy world, in which we are currently living.

      So let’s hope and pray we may both get through our current difficulties as best and justly as possible, and with God’s help.

      “Let freedom ring for the mad,” and Everyone Else, in these days of Covid, and a seeming Pharmakia greed run amok world. And isn’t it ironic, that my possibly greed only inspired relative, is a pharmacist, who knows less about the psych drugs, than do I?

      Thank you for all you have done, and do, Mr. Whitaker.

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  3. Thank you Robert Whitaker. This is encouraging information re Human Rights.

    You write with surgical precision and consistently achieve the very highest standards of scientific journalism; addressing the unforgivable suffering caused by mainstream psychiatry and its dependance on deprivation of freedom and the forced use of drugs with appalling adverse reactions (ADRs).

    I have seen serial deprivation of liberty, forced drugging, cruelty, abuse and lifelong injuries caused by the misdiagnosis of (unnecessary) SSRI induced AKATHISIA as ‘Psychotic Depression’.

    The original misdiagnosis became serial misdiagnoses, and each new casually applied, damaging ‘Label for Life’ resulted in further drugging, additional ADRs and greater and greater injury.
    This Cascade Iatrogenesis from psychiatry should not be tolerated by the Medical Profession.
    It deviates from the basic tenets of best practice in all areas of Medicine where physicians of conscience aspire to achieve the highest standards of care and the avoidance of harm.

    It is acknowledged that there are some committed and caring practitioners in psychiatry, and some of these have the courage to write on your Webzine acknowledging the great need for change.

    There is no place for those who cannot differentiate a toxic delusion (ADR) from ‘Psychosis’.

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  4. Thank you so much for reporting this Robert. I am going to format the PDF, with a computer program k2pdfopt, then sideload it onto my eReader and read it, all night long, here in New York. I am not lawyer but basically all of the psy-professional’s arguments seem to boil down to the argumentum ad verecundiam; I am getting tired of battling against psychiatry via maths, logic and science. It seems easier and perhaps also more effective to just to counter them with the argumentum ad verecundiam vis-a-vis the WHO and UN.

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    • Well, I might ad that the appeal to authority as far as I can understand, even misunderstand, works great when the DSM admits it lacks any scientific, empirical, logical and clinical grounding, precisely because it is authorititive.

      So, if the DSM claims it can’t distinguish symptoms from normal, it has no disease process to explain symptoms, i.e. it has no disease and no symptoms, the severity of symptoms means nothing, the best they have is the DSM, AND that is authoritative, I can’t honestly see why ANYONE would believe mental illness is nothing but a fabrication.

      But it is an excellent point that empiricism, medical ethics, medical practice, so called duties of care and safety can’t be done if the law forbids them.

      They require compliance with the law, before even contemplating it’s application, I think. I am no lawyer.

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  5. Great article, as usual, but I have to disagree. The UN and the WHO are playing a shell game. What they giveth, is also what they taketh. Among the UN’s “sustainable goals” are erasing the language of women, and forcing radical gender ideology. Let’s not pretend that being called a “birthing person” or a “cervix haver”, and removing the word “mother” does not affect women’s mental health. Women’s rights organizations staged a protest in front of the UN, and the media didn’t even bother reporting it. While they seem to be supporting people getting off psychiatric drugs, they are also all in on forcing vaccines.

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    • Beware of the UN and WHO as false saviors.

      Regarding the UN, “Wikileaks has released 70 United Nations investigative reports classified “Strictly Confidential”. The reports expose matters from allegations of hundreds of European peace-keepers sexually abusing refugee girls to generals in Peru using Swiss bank accounts to engage in multi-million dollar frauds against the UN.”[1] How does such horrible corruption fit in with their sustainable development goals? Peter Breggin has pointed out that the global predators are attempting to use both the UN and the WHO to usurp all sovereignty over all life on Earth . And regarding the WHO, Peter Breggin calls their leader a thug who was a warlord in Ethiopia or close to warlords in Ethiopia (I cannot remember this detail exactly right now) and who is now close to the CCP, which is one of the most brutal regimes on Earth, and which has already built out a dystopian social credit score/ubiquitous surveillance/extreme censorship slave system with the help of many “American” companies who are now attacking us all. Klaus Schwab and the WEF talk about the Great Reset rather openly at times, although not on their “mainstream” propaganda, which they call news. Bill Gates called the genetic nanolipid injections the “final solution”.[2] He was also in a corrupt relationship with child-rapist Jeff Epstein and MIT. His wife divorced him when he was caught and reported through friends that she was being “haunted” by her ex-husband’s relationship to Jeff Epstein.[3] The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has close ties to the WHO, and has connections to many of the institutions attacking us. Another person you may want to investigate is Eric Schmidt. He was Google’s chairperson from the early 2000s to the mid 2010s. He worked with the NSA to spy on Americans in violation of our fundamental, inalienable rights. He lied about this, when Wikileaks’s Julian Assange was trying to get to the Truth and Justice. Earlier this year he was with Condaleeza Rice. I also saw him give a talk at a WEF event. He is on the Board of Trustees at the Mayo Clinic. Another surprising name I recognied here a few years back was Paul Volker, previous chairperson of the Federal Reserve, who has now passed away. I was startled when I saw this. What a change from the days of the Franciscan nuns who co-founded the Mayo Clinic in the early 1880s after a tornado blew through Rochester and the residents needed help. All that good-will arbitraged for one of the eviest attacks on humanity ever. I could go on more but I will stop here.

      God bless all, and Amen.

      [1] https://wikileaks.org/wiki/United_Nations_confidential_reports
      [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXTp2U4HKjY
      [3] https://www.newsweek.com/bill-gates-jeffrey-epstein-timeline-friendship-relationship-1590004

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  6. Beautifully written thank you who and united nations now implementing these concepts is going to take force peacekeepers with teeth as in war to combat crimes against humanity. I’m sick of united nations protocol and ratified agreements being mocked and violated 1. Biological chemical warfare and the pharmaceuticals against the mad is nothing more than chemical warfare… ie the rights of the child sgain crimes against humanity surrogacy being one forced surrogacy forced abortions female circumcision sterilization of the physically and mentally disabled especially disable by crime victimization impoverished discriminated and prejudice against these said individuals denied due process and the right to access the law policing right to cross examine one’s accuser in courts of law the right to be presumed innocent and burden of proof in manufactured evidence and fabrications against scapegoats yes its going a war and we have been 43 years in war against the poor and right now two very serious ones so let’s go enact crimes against humanity resolution of robert jackson Canada Russia France USA and England all signed lets go I’ve been waiting for 30 years and they’ve spent at least 2 million to trash me on botched birthing premeditated to cripple me in violence of medicine intrusions and invasive under mental health scams to cover up serious medical blunders reckless disregard to human life and fragility vis a vis resilience because to their dismay I’m still alive still demanding justice . Again beautifully written.

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    • I think it is more like chemical torture than warfare.

      The intent is to change behaviour, force compliance, repression or acquire information by chemical means, without the consent of the sufferer, and that is torture of the chemical kind.

      And probable without benefit for the suferer, at least in the long run, very well documented here at MIA. Even if some thank latter for the “forced/involuntary” treatment.

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  7. One tremendous blessing of the COVID disaster has been the revelation that organizations like the UN, WHO, and CDC are globalist-communist monsters who don’t care one bit about people. Now that we know they are the actually enemies of civilization, we can ignore them, mock them without mercy, or fight them when it seems plausible.

    There is NOTHING the UN, WHO, or CDC has to say that anyone should incorporate into one’s life.

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    • I disagree, I think the WHO did a wonderfull job handling the pandemic.

      The work of Dr. Ghebreyesus in my opinion was the best anyone could have done. He is a microbiologist, a malariologist, and now, after decades of research there is a malaria vaccine that meets the requirements to be applied to save millions of minors lives…

      And from my past knowledge and experience, I am a retired physician, the WHO did excellent work in the guidelines to provide affordable, effective, timely care in pregnancy, pneumonia, diarrhea, malnutrition, etc.

      And I know that because I reviewed the guidelines, for my personal use, to see if they stood scientifically and were not cheapened down to be used in just “the third world”. They were not!, they were top science based guidelines, at least decades ago.

      The programs to eradicate smallpox, the still ongoing to eradicate polio are coordinated by the WHO. Those are sucesses, even if polio is a little patchy still.

      Ditto for tuberculosis, cholera and leprosy. All those programs might not look relevant for the “first world”, but in my country, Mexico, those science based guidelines might have saved millions of lives.

      Where would I be if I hadn’t had 2 polio vaccines every year from 1yr to 6yrs?, free of charge, safe, effective, delivered at my home or school?.

      Where would I be without my free vaccines for measles, rubeola and diphteria?. Where would my peers would be?.

      And the PHO, the panamerican health organization did provide for us, strapped on cash, top, cheap, updated accurate medical books that we otherwise could not have afforded. I took several of those with me when I worked in a rural community, and they were heckuba usefull.

      With just a credential of my medical school, nothing more, and a trip to the luxurious house where the PHO had those books, but it was more than worth it.

      So, it’s more than meets the eye in those kind of global, international comunity organization.

      And I, as a retired physician, I am gratefull, appreciative and full of admiration for their outstanding work, it helped me and it help me help my patients.

      At no direct, immediate cost for me, or my patients…

      And for a while, the British Medical Journal did put for “emerging” countries their articles, as soon as published free for us, to keep up and expand with the “literature”. So it’s not just those organization, the BMJ did help make medical knwoledge available to those who otherwise could not have afforded it, like me.

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  8. Thanks Robert for writing this clarion call. I find it still a mess in terms of why the focus on mental health with incarceration and sometimes fkr those with substance abuse disorders and how vagrancy laws and the Policeman at your elbow law all interact with each other.
    There seems to be an increased fear factir of homeless and or folks who live outside the margins of so called normal life. And that can be judged just by walking behavior, dressing, hygenie, talking to oneself but so confusing now because of ear buds. And this incorporates folks in the DD world , the Vet world, the crisis world, the addiction worlds and there are worlds now, the offender in a iterated once or more , the juvenile workd and runaways which is a stud offense and depending where you are and who you are may mean legal isdues or, theur is the human trafficking Wirld , the production wirkd, and many mix and meet and meld at times but always the suicide alarm bell that has to use enforced treatment. Some of the most deep and dark words I have heard have been at Alanon meetings with parents discussing their own despair with a offsprings seemingly intractable life issues. It was heard and accepted and no one called 911 and no suggested a hotline or warm line. To be a speaker in a 22 step program or a so called lead means one is honored and respected and has done some hard work somehow.
    So why the focus on suicide when it has been a human civilization problem ? I am unable to put all the pieces of the entire huge puzzle together bevause so many missing but the use of enforced care ration with no therapeutic milieu at best or care and compassion and locked units and isolation rooms and restraints and staff barely filunctioning themselves bevausr to work in a carcel state or agency or institution is to be a sort of prisoner as well. Numbing goes on as a survival tool for those incarcerated and those supervising
    and interacting on the. carcel unit.
    And for all the historical bad stuff in the past this is much worse thst forty years ago here psych units at least some had pianos and recreational activity and outside privelge a. And sometimes therspy depending private / public/ luck of the draw.
    And who and why are some hidden people able to make money off of this? And with the advent of private prisons this is also a big big issue.
    All of this is interelated and needs to be not only changed but stopped and perhaps a completely new way of coping in communities created.

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  10. I wouldn’t take the words of the WHO, as well as take the WHO at its word, for any real or radical call to human freedom for anyone on the planet.

    Beginning in 2020, it became grand central for global lockdown to a coup called covid-19, a false flag flu (and not its first, particularly with the 2009 swine flu fraud) to declare medical martial law across the world and deprive people altogether of autonomy under imposed public health protocols and forced treatments, not least of all experimental injections of ‘vaccines’ (essentially GMOs) in direct violation of the Nuremberg Code and which since their introduction have seen sharp increases in all-cause excess death indicative of deliberate depopulation.

    And that’s not even close to the mouthful of lies this front for the pharmafia (and the WEF) is trying to shove down our throats, just so eugenicist pseudoscience can keep shooting us full of biodigital poison and colonize the human species along with every other form of life, as the WHO now works behind the scenes to craft even more draconian ‘health’ regulations and p(l)andemic treaties for greater totalitarian control, including over what little rights remain of free speech and assembly, as its own ministry of thought police target ‘misinformation’, itself increasingly cast in terms of ‘mental illness’ no doubt needing the kind of ‘care’ already shown the unvaxxed.

    Enough mouthfuls from me, as I suspect my dismissal already by some as a suspect rightwing-nut, Trump-loving, QAnon cult follower or simply a conspiracy theorist, courtesy of CIA psyop from the 60s to smear anyone who questioned the Warren Report’s whitewash of the JFK assassination and any shadow state rule since. But all the above and more is rooted in much the same investigative research and evidence as otherwise so masterfully displayed in Mad in America. Here for starters, among many more, are some sources for further consideration:
    Global Research
    Off-Guardian
    Corbett Report
    Unlimited Hangout
    Last American Vagabond
    Children’s Health Defense.

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  11. I am very glad that the issue of legality is kinda put forth, put above the delusionary rhetoric of “mental ilness”. Above the etics of psychiatric care that on top are contrary to the law, the international treaties, enforceable wherever, more or less, are signed.

    Which sadly is not in the US, apparently.

    To put the acussing finger not on the WHO or the UN, but on the APA, the pharma complex and it’s minions in the medical publishing and some practitioners.

    They are the ones either breaking the law, or promoting the severe almost genocidal transgressions, as far as I can perceive.

    The peddlers of psychiatry, not the promoters of law, science and human rights.

    I applaud the UN and the WHO for such act of bravery, integrity and honesty. Such strong comitment to the rule of law.

    And I deplore the resistance, the contrivances that refuse to see clearly who is the real wrongdoer here, the resistance to change. At least in my mind, and opinion.

    Attacking a good deed on the perception that comes from a bad place just helps the opposition, it solidifies that way things are, and that is bad for many of us.

    It allows psychiatry to keep getting away with it, and I think that is wrong, and I stand against it.

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  12. Institutions, especially political institutions, tend to be diverse and dynamic. Power seems to make people speak out of both sides of their mouths. There appears to be hypocrisy in the UN on how they treat the mad and the handling of COVID. It might be good to point out that many of the people who signed on to the idea that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness also owned slaves. I heard that there are a lot of good people doing good things in the WHO but the leadership looks pretty corrupt. Here in America I’ve met a lot of people that seem like pretty good people but get pretty disgusted at their choices in the voting booth. American law making is notorious for passing really good looking bills that really don’t make things any better. I have pretty much given up on the idea that any government can make things any better. Heaven or hell over a land rests on the hearts of men. An American founding father once said “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

    Creating a underclass seems to be the foundation to a hierarchy and a competitive society. Competition seems to drive large scale industrial societies. People who can’t compete or don’t want to compete have to be controlled, marginalized or ostracized so that the economic gravy train can keep rolling along. Taking the chains off the mad would swiftly take away the dominance of a dominant country unless there is something to prop it up. The mad tend to need basic free resources. Those resources either come willingly from an altruistic society or grudgingly through taxes in a greedy state. An altruistic society would probably need no government. It would probably feel no need for trade, manipulation with drugs or need to differentiate between mad and sane. Such a society is pretty foreign to a modern economic powerhouse. In the end, in an economically competitive society, the mad look like useless eaters. They are drugged to be controlled to reduce the economic damage they cause just by being unemployed. I know this is pretty sick but there was a politician 80 years ago that had a solution he called the final solution. Hardly anyone wants to be like him so drug muzzling is the unfortunate alternative. Euthanasia like ECT is seeing a revival though. Like ECT it will probably be more “humane”.

    In a modern society, economics drives stigma. If a pop artist sings a song that says “I’m bad, I’m bad, I know it” and he makes millions of dollars from it, then “bad” is no longer seen as bad anymore. If you want a country like America to give full legal rights to the mad, it is probably going to take a while because Americans seem to benefit pretty well financially from this psychological apartheid. America needs strong community on a local level. Americans know they are missing something and they are trying to numb their soul as not to deal with it. Big business is making America drunk with money and power. Americans can’t help but eat at the table of profits over people.

    Poorer nations with strong localized communities are not locked in to cater to the interests of large corporations and businesses like the more affluent ones. Strong localized communities are well equipped to deal with the mad. A symbiosis can easily develop between the two entities. Economically driven societies tend to see people as either financial assets or liabilities marked with a positive or negative currency number. In such places, time is money and anything that doesn’t make money is a waste of time. So the mad tend to get little time unless there is money to be made.

    Money, power and competition harden the soul. Empathetic and sensitive people can’t deal with the ill will of a superficial status driven power hungry society. They can act and talk in erratic ways created from the madness they see around them. The people with no economic value are the soul of a culture. The mad tend to have a hard time holding down a job. Quite often they are the flying birds that get caught up in the engines of the great economic jumbo jet. Countries that feel the need to keep a dominant position in the world must increasingly keep or grow their their economic prowess. In those nations, the gods of the cult of materialism demand greater and greater sacrifices. The blood thirsty dogs of psychiatry and big Pharma protect the crystal castle of big business. The mad need love as does everyone and the more a society wants money, power and egotistical status, the less love it can provide. Human rights abuses are not sustainable but before they are fought, it is probably good to understand what holds them up.

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  13. A clarion call is good. Let freedom ring for the mad!

    How does supported decision making look in practice?

    I abhor the use of involuntary treatment. Here is Australia independent tribunals have oversight of Involuntary treatment orders. One can easily level criticism – these tribunals are steeped in medical model culture etc. But my question is – where would oversight lie for supported decision making? What mechanism in place to support the vulnerable, if the “supporter” has their own agenda?

    When I speak with physicians who also abhor involuntary treatment their question is “how”? They quote me anecdotes of extreme cases, and ask “how” (when someone is cutting off their own body parts, or is intent on harming others, due to delusions ), how do we pretend that “precluding all forms of involuntary commitment to mental health facilities, including on the basis of “dangerousness” or “need of care.” is the best way forward, or even in-line with common sense? I have sympathy with their questioning.

    These are extreme cases. And a clarion call is a clarion call – useful in its way. But absolutes can be alienating.

    Non-drug treatments, Soteria houses, open dialogue, dignity of risk and of choice, removal of homelessness and poverty. These would assist.

    We know that involuntary and restrictive practices are a denial of freedom. And worse. I too believe that “torture” is not too strong a word for current practices. If 99.9% of all involuntary practices were abandoned, would an enlightened society choose to use such practices 0.01% of the time? (Would we?)

    It is wonderful to hear such a strong statement of “why” there is a need to do away with involuntary psychiatric care, now we must answer the “how” in a way that is effective in mobilising clinicians in mental health care. I would not wish extreme anecdotes to trump or silence arguments relating to the removal of the everyday abuses being perpetrated.

    How do I answer critics who call me naïve for supporting the removal of all involuntary “treatment”/detainment??

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  14. The CRPD is a radical document that is to some extent influencing the direction of Law in its encounter with madness.

    In the UK this is increasingly moving the Law and its encounter with madness to justify poor responses to crisis as something else, as positive acknowledgements of autonomy, citing mental capacity as a fundamental right to choose. In other words, the effects of austerity ideological cutbacks and repackaged as humans rights respecting responses. So people die or get physically injured, and thats okay, because we didnt use force or coercion.

    And also the unintended consequence of CRPD is that more and more people are being denied financial concessions, again because it is austerity repackaged as human rights respecting. The disabled have a right to work, just as everyone else does. So remove financial support and they now have to work to survive. No work available for them to survive? No one said the world was an easy or safe place.

    And finally the CRPD in the UK has influenced Law into very shadey areas in which madness,the subjectivity of madness, is being increasingly criminalised. Such that for example a woman in Bristol, who had suffered horrendous trauma in her childhood, and then a secondary trauma in adulthood because of austerity cutbacks and not being able to access appropriate care and support, is found to be crying “excessively” in her home, and it is upsetting her neighbours, and so crying is not a criminal offence, so they make it a criminal offence, by issuing her with a “behavioural order” which to not follow in now contempt of court. And so we know where that’s going. And again, this is wrapped up as protecting her human rights, and treating her equally as everyone else, because everyone else is not crying incessantly day and night, so why should she?

    CRPD is indeed a wonderful development, but in the hands of governments that do not sincerely embrace it, it is fast becoming a new way to oppress.

    Sad, very sad.

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