Tag: forced treatment

From Stuff: In 2015, the United Nations Committee Against Torture expressed concern at New Zealand's use of seclusion against mental health patients. According to a...

From the San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco city officials are hoping to change the law that allows homeless individuals with mental health diagnoses to stay on...

In this piece for the National Survivor User Network, Liz Sayce argues that people with mental health conditions will continue to stay silent about their...

From Stuff: More than 800 New Zealand mental health patients were held in seclusion at some point last year, representing a six percent increase in...

The National Survivor User Network (NSUN) has expressed concerns about the UK government's plans to reform the Mental Health Act, as the government's current approach...

From The Daily Dot: Last week, Facebook announced a global rollout of their new suicide prevention algorithm, which aims to identify users deemed at risk...

In this piece for the National Survivor User Network, Martin Coyle highlights some of the shortcomings of the UK's Mental Health Act in light of its...

From The Guardian: The oldest asylum in the Balkans has now been transformed into an unlocked mental health center. The patients have begun living in...

In light of the recent events and media discussions pertaining to the issue of sexual violence, we feel that it is of the utmost importance to speak out about this issue in the context of psychiatry and the treatment of those perceived as mentally ill.

From The Washington Post: In Massachusetts, which has one of the highest rates of opioid deaths nationally, addiction-related civil commitments have doubled in the past...

In this piece for Electric Lit, Anne Thériault shares how the book Girl, Interrupted helped her survive her 72-hour hold in a psychiatric ward following a suicide attempt. "The psychiatric...

From WFAA: Many patients who check themselves into psychiatric hospitals voluntarily may have difficulty when attempting to check out. In one recent incident in Denton,...

Audit of ECT usage, demographics, and adherence to guidelines and legislation raises concern over its continued use.

From the Star Tribune: Minnesota taxpayers have shelled out more than $92 million to house patients at a state psychiatric hospital who no longer require...

This week on the Mad in America podcast we interview Olga Runciman. Olga is an international trainer and speaker, writer, campaigner, and artist. In this interview, we discuss Olga’s professional and personal experiences of the psychiatric system and how she now helps and supports healing and recovery in others.

From the Sun Sentinel: Palm Beach County is drafting regulations prohibiting therapists from practicing conversion therapy to try to change a child's sexual orientation. Palm Beach...

If I had any legal rights, I knew nothing about them. And the hospital cared even less about them. As a law student, I would like to share the legal rights I did have in the state of California and how they were violated from the very start.

This week on the Mad in America Podcast we launch our series on forced treatment, interviewing antipsychiatry scholar Bonnie Burstow and neurodiversity scholar Nick Walker. Central to both Nick and Bonnie’s work is the concept of cognitive liberty, or freedom and integrity of the mind.

From the Hartford Courant: Over this past spring and summer, 31 employees of the Whiting Forensic Division of Connecticut Valley Hospital were suspended, and nine...

From Pacific Standard: In an effort to protect homeless individuals from the effects of Hurricane Irma, officials from the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust used the...

From The Boston Globe: The state of Massachusetts has permanently closed the Westwood Lodge psychiatric hospital due to issues of patient safety, quality of care,...

From the Hartford Courant: Nine state mental health workers at Whiting Forensic have been arrested and charged with cruelty to persons in the largest patient-abuse...

This piece from Newsner chronicles the life and work of Elizabeth Cochran Seaman, a journalist who went undercover to expose the conditions at an infamous mental...

In this two-part video series for AdvancingMentalHealth.org, attorney Gary Brown questions the constitutionality of psychiatric confinement and discusses forced treatment from a legal perspective. Part I →­ Part II →­

A recent editorial, published in BMJ, argues there is an increase in coercive measures in psychiatry that are damaging to individuals diagnosed with mental illness.