Wrongful involuntary commitment
Wrongful involuntary commitment or wrongful commitment refers to the unethical practice where mental health professionals wrongfully deem an individual to have symptoms of a mental disorder, and thereby commit the individual for treatment in a psychiatric hospital. In other words, it is involuntary commitment that is unjustified or illegal. It is interrelated with false imprisonment, medical malpractice, and medical error.[1] Wrongful commitment is a primary component anti-psychiatry movement.[2][3][4]
Wrongful involuntary commitment was first recognized in the United States 19th century.[5] In 1851, physician Samuel A. Cartwright hypothesized that it was a mental illness that caused slaves to have the desire to run away, which he called drapetomania.[6] In 1860, the case of Elizabeth Packard, who was wrongfully committed that year and filed a lawsuit and won thereafter, shed light on the immorality and illegality of wrongful involuntary commitment.[7] In 1887, investigative journalist Nellie Bly went undercover at an asylum in New York City to expose the terrible conditions that mental patients at the time had to deal with. She published her findings and experiences as articles in New York World, and later made the articles into one book called Ten Days in a Mad-House. Her book was extremely successful and brought the egregious conditions of psychiatric healthcare at the time to the forefront.[8]
The 20th century saw a few high-profile cases that were racist, sexist, and punished political dissenters by committing people unjustifiably. In 1927, demonstrator Aurora D'Angelo was involuntarily committed after participating in a rally in support of Sacco and Vanzetti.[9][pages needed] Throughout the 1940s and 1950s in Canada, 20,000 Canadian children, called the Duplessis orphans, were wrongfully certified as being mentally ill and as a result were wrongfully committed to psychiatric institutions where they were forced to take psychiatric medication that they did not need, and were abused. They were named after Maurice Duplessis, the premier of Quebec at the time, who deliberately committed these children to in order to misappropriate additional subsidies from the federal government.[10][11] Decades later in the 1990s, several of the orphans sued Quebec and the Catholic Church for the abuse and wrongdoing.[12] In 1958, black pastor and activist Clennon Washington King Jr. tried enrolling at the University of Mississippi, which at the time was white, for summer classes; the local police secretly arrested and involuntarily committed him to a mental hospital for 12 days.[13][14]
In 1973, the Rosenhan experiment brought more attention to the conditions of modern psychiatric healthcare. The experiment was conducted by psychologist David Rosenhan as he questioned the validity of both psychiatric diagnoses and involuntary commitments; eight healthy associates feigned auditory hallucinations to gain admission to psychiatric hospitals. All eight people were admitted and diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. After being admitted, the patients acted normally and told staff that they were no longer experiencing hallucinations, but the patients were forced to admit to having a mental illness and agree to take medication they did not need in order to be released. The average hospital stay for all patients was 19 days.[15][16]
Psychiatrists Peter Breggin and Thomas Szasz have been critical of psychiatric diagnosis, psychiatric medications, electroconvulsive therapy, and involuntary commitment.[17][18] Szasz also founded the American Association for the Abolition of Involuntary Mental Hospitalization in 1970 and it was in operation for a decade before folding in 1980.[19][20]
While patients are able to sue if they believe that they have been wrongfully committed,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27] it is rare for hospitalized patients, who request that their case be reviewed by a court, to be released from their commitment. Typically the court sides with the psychiatrists.[28] It is also known that at least a sizable number of people refuse to seek help due to their fear of being involuntarily committed, wrongfully or rightfully.[29]
In 2010, Berkeley police officer Melissa Kelly abused California's 5150 involuntary psychiatric hold protocol by committing an unnamed person for no good reason.[30]
See also[edit]
- Involuntary commitment
- Political abuse of psychiatry
- Anti-psychiatry
- Patient abuse
- Patient advocacy
- Rosenhan experiment
- Peter Breggin
- Thomas Szasz
- Nellie Bly
- Anatomy of an Epidemic
- Pseudoscience
References[edit]
- ↑ "What is Wrongful Commitment?". The Law Dictionary. 2013-03-28. Archived from the original on October 12, 2017. Retrieved 2020-07-13. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "UNC study: Mental illness by itself does not predict future violent behavior". UNC Health Care. February 2, 2009. Archived from the original on April 14, 2009. Retrieved July 2, 2009. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Desai, Nimesh G. (2005). "Antipsychiatry: Meeting the challenge". Indian Journal of Psychiatry. 47 (4): 185–187. doi:10.4103/0019-5545.43048. ISSN 0019-5545. PMC 2921130. PMID 20711302. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2020. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Henry A. Nasrallah (December 2011). "The antipsychiatry movement: Who and why" (PDF). Current Psychiatry. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-02-07. Retrieved 2013-08-14. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Civil Commitment and the Mental Health Care Continuum: Historical Trends and Principles for Law and Practice" (PDF). SAMHSA: 7. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 31, 2020. Retrieved July 13, 2020. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ White, Kevin (2002). An introduction to the sociology of health and illness. SAGE. pp. 41, 42. ISBN 0-7619-6400-2. Archived from the original on May 11, 2020. Retrieved July 14, 2020. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) Search this book on
- ↑ Testa, Megan; West, Sara G. (October 2010). "Civil Commitment in the United States". Psychiatry (Edgmont). 7 (10): 30–40. ISSN 1550-5952. PMC 3392176. PMID 22778709. Archived from the original on June 7, 2020. Retrieved July 13, 2020. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ DeMain, Bill (May 2, 2011). "Ten Days in a Madhouse: The Woman Who Got Herself Committed". Mental Floss. Archived from the original on May 14, 2019. Retrieved 2013-04-23. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Moshik, Temkin (2009). The Sacco-Vanzetti Affair. Yale University Press Publishers. p. 316. ISBN 978-0-300-12484-2. Search this book on
- ↑ "Duplessis orphans seek proof of medical experiments". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Jun 18, 2004. Archived from the original on January 28, 2018. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Hahn, Christine (May 22, 2003). "The Worst of Times: How Psychiatry Used Quebec's Orphans as Guinea Pigs". Freedom. Retrieved 2020-07-14. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Farnsworth, Clyde H. (1993-05-21). "Orphans of the 1950's, Telling of Abuse, Sue Quebec". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on November 23, 2018. Retrieved 2020-07-14. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Tucker, William H. (2002). The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund. University of Illinois Press. p. 119. ISBN 978-0-252-02762-8. Archived from the original on May 6, 2020. Retrieved July 14, 2020. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) Search this book on
- ↑ "Negro Pastor Pronounced Sane; Demands Mississippi Apologize". UPI. Sarasota Journal 20 June 1958: 3.
- ↑ "Stanford Law School Mourns the Loss of David L. Rosenhan, Professor of Law & Psychology, Emeritus". Stanford Law School. 2012-03-05. Retrieved 2020-07-13. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Cahalan, Susannah. "The Rosenhan experiment". New Scientist. Retrieved 2020-07-13. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Breggin, Peter (2012-02-16). "The Stealth ECT Psychiatrist in Psychiatric Reform". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on March 7, 2018. Retrieved 2017-08-12. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Szasz, Thomas (2011). "The myth of mental illness: 50 years later" (PDF). The Psychiatrist. 35 (5): 179–82. doi:10.1192/pb.bp.110.031310. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 20, 2012. Retrieved April 27, 2012. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Fuller Torrey, Edwin (1988). Surviving schizophrenia: a family manual. Perennial Library. p. 315. ISBN 978-0-06-055119-3. Archived from the original on August 4, 2016. Retrieved July 13, 2020. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) Search this book on
- ↑ Propp, Steven (2013). The quest for the inner human: a novel about psychology. iUniverse. p. 270. ISBN 1491715294. Archived from the original on May 27, 2016. Retrieved July 13, 2020. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) Search this book on
- ↑ Livni, Ephrat (Oct 5, 2015). "False Imprisonment in Healthcare". Findlaw. Archived from the original on March 12, 2018. Retrieved 2020-07-13. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Detaining patients against wishes carries legal risks - amednews.com". American Medical News. 2010-08-11. Archived from the original on August 29, 2018. Retrieved 2020-07-13. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Orlando, James (Jan 24, 2013). "Involuntary Civil Commitment and Patients' Rights". Connecticut General Assembly. Archived from the original on March 20, 2015. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Involuntary Commitment/Treatment". Psych Rights. Archived from the original on October 31, 2019. Retrieved 2020-07-13. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Can an involuntary commitment be false imprisonment if it is not malpractice? : Thompson O'neil Law". Thompson & O'Neil Law. Archived from the original on December 20, 2019. Retrieved 2020-07-13. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Annotated List of Damage Cases for Persons with Mental Disabilities". Psych Rights. May 2002. Archived from the original on October 31, 2019. Retrieved 2020-07-13. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "False Imprisonment: Nurse Tried To Hold Patient Against His Will - Patient Can Sue Hospital, Court Says". Nursing Law. July 1998. Archived from the original on February 7, 2018. Retrieved 2020-07-13. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Unjustified Psychiatric Commitment in the U.S.A." Wayne Ramsay. Archived from the original on July 7, 2019. Retrieved 2020-07-13. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Henry, Tanya Albert (Jan 22, 2020). "High court ruling must avoid encouraging involuntary commitment". American Medical Association. Archived from the original on January 28, 2020. Retrieved 2020-07-13. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "BPD Officer Melissa Kelly Abuses 5150 protocol". Indybay. Jan 9, 2010. Archived from the original on May 6, 2020. Retrieved 2020-07-14. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help)
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