Personally, I see no conflict here. By 'right to health' I take it that a diversity of resources, products, services etc. that can help restore, maintain or promote a healthful quality of life ought to be available and universally accessible. (Personally, I would also include nutritious food, decent housing and community engagement among the above).

The right to self-determination in this case could mean that individuals ought to have exclusive prerogative to decide for themselves which available resources (if any) best suit their personal  needs, and that these things ought never be forced upon an unwilling person.

In any event, 'unsound of mind' 'mentally ill' or 'lacking insight' (among numerous other psychiatric terminologies) are subjective terms which could typically mean that one person is making personal choices that do not meet with someone else's approval, or even that of society as a whole.

If someone else's choices or decisions made in their own behalf seem bothersome or 'unsound' in nature (for whatever reason) we have a voice, and a right (hell, frequently an obligation) to speak up - but that is where any legitimate right to intervene begins and ends. The principle is the same as someone's right to swing their fists around being limited by the right of others not to be punched in the nose. In other words, say whatever you need to say but keep hands off. 

If a person is being violent, they definitely need to be stopped from hurting others. But that principle is inapplicable in the vast majority of instances where psychiatry wields its coercive powers.

Painful (and perhaps unfeeling) as this perspective may sound, to my mind it is far worse to commit an act of violence against someone based upon what might merely be seen as bad personal choices (which everyone on earth makes sometimes, yet having a diagnosis raises the bar to impossible heights). 

To my mind, coercive 'treatment' is purposefully designed to punish people who are too visibly alienated, lonely, frightened, angry or who have a non-mainstream way of viewing reality, and as such it is an inherently violent process. Psychiatry's Orwellian 'justifications' for use of force cannot change this fact.

People need to ask themselves: does coercion really 'save' anyone - or is that notion merely a massive ego trip carried out at the expense of vulnerable people? And how often could it simply be a response based upon blind prejudice and irrational fear?

It begs the question as to who (or what) is actually being 'saved' when force is applied. Is it the rescue of someone else who is perceived as being 'of unsound mind' - or is it something in the 'rescuer'?

Far too many people want to be the hero. Psychiatrists and other 'mental health workers' actually get to make their living by playing out this particular fantasy at the expense of others. The problem being that one person's hero is invariably someone else's villain.

Think about it.

Graeme Bacque
December 24, 2007