Forced Electroshock Therapy
Feb. 15th, 2025 05:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ndrosenI will admit that I don’t have good or complete answers to the various dilemmas which arise in treating the more or less insane. Should people be forcibly medicated with drugs that can have seriously distressing side effects? Should they be free to refuse medication even if they become raving mad without it, and are minimally sane and able to function with it, or at least quiescent and harmless? Should refusal to take prescribed drugs be treated as proof of paranoid delusions, or do some sane people have good reasons not to take medications which they in fact do not need? Are psychiatrists at least mostly wise, and sincerely trying to help, or are they appallingly arrogant and abusive in some cases?
There is a Reason article on the campaign to save a man from court-ordered shock therapy. It may not be without bias, and I don’t have the mental hospital’s side of the story, but there seem to be genuine issues of a patient’s difficulty in getting a fair hearing before a judge, as well as of the harmful effects of electroshock treatment — and yes, I know that electroshock can be truly helpful to some people with severe depression or other problems.
There is also mention of mental hospitals encouraging their staff to label patients as “combative”, and to avoid using words like “calm”, so as to generate a record to justify keeping the so-called patients imprisoned in the hospital until their insurance is exhausted. I remember a scandal in the 1990s over one chain of mental hospitals doing this kind of thing, and basically kidnapping sane people to fleece their insurers. If this kind of fraud can be proven, making the hospitals disgorge their ill-gotten gains should be the start of it; there is also something to be said for having the responsible doctors and hospital administrators flogged in the public square.
There is a Reason article on the campaign to save a man from court-ordered shock therapy. It may not be without bias, and I don’t have the mental hospital’s side of the story, but there seem to be genuine issues of a patient’s difficulty in getting a fair hearing before a judge, as well as of the harmful effects of electroshock treatment — and yes, I know that electroshock can be truly helpful to some people with severe depression or other problems.
There is also mention of mental hospitals encouraging their staff to label patients as “combative”, and to avoid using words like “calm”, so as to generate a record to justify keeping the so-called patients imprisoned in the hospital until their insurance is exhausted. I remember a scandal in the 1990s over one chain of mental hospitals doing this kind of thing, and basically kidnapping sane people to fleece their insurers. If this kind of fraud can be proven, making the hospitals disgorge their ill-gotten gains should be the start of it; there is also something to be said for having the responsible doctors and hospital administrators flogged in the public square.
no subject
Date: 2025-02-15 06:55 pm (UTC)Sounds a lot like for profit prisons
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Date: 2025-02-16 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-16 06:33 pm (UTC)True (leaving out kickbacks / bribes to judges), but I was thinking more of things like time off for good behavior. Also, dunno if got paid more if someone put in solitary, or upgraded to higher level security bc of bad behavior.
no subject
Date: 2025-02-15 07:24 pm (UTC)