I have just been asked (via email) by someone at a conference that
Allen Frances is attending what to do about Allen Frances's line that
the antipsychiatry people are being ideological and that when someone is
in crisis and so their judgment in impaired, forcing treatment may be
the kindest thing to do. Also that better that they spend a week in a
psychiatric institution than a far longer time in prison. As these are
points that in one form or another are made again and again, I thought
that I would post my response. It went as follows:
Yes, that is
the standard Frances line. Unfortunately, coercing what they consider
as the odd person into receiving the treatment which they "need" is
exactly the rationale that lies behind the system that we now have,
exactly the discourse that underpins current mental health systems
throughout the world; and so taking this line leaves us approximately
where we are now. Frances is arguing that less people need to be coerced
and then we just need to add safeguards. As reasonable as this seems,
that is precise argument that led to the current state of affairs—and
it resulted in no lasting changes for anyone—just more steps and more
tic boxes, more types of governance as it were. Given the
"treatments" that we currently administer overwhelmingly harm, moreover,
it is an argument that minimally makes no sense at this point in time.
Even before we factor what Frances would call "impaired judgment" (and
how easily we apply this judgment to others) overwhelmingly the person
with bad judgment is in the long run not making worse decisions for
themselves than the system makes for them. "Crises", moreover, as the
ancient Greeks knew, are "turning points". With support, people need to be
allowed their space to work things out for themselves. As for making
mistakes, even terrible ones in a crisis, that possibility is precisely
our lot as human beings. We make our decisions, and if they don't kill
us, we learn from them.
Allen Frances, I would add, is quite
rightly worried about the situation where distressed people transgress
society's rules and end up in prison. His answer is to put them in a
psychiatric institution instead. While I have no question but they are
being horrifically mistreated in jail, it is not in the least clear to
me that their week-long stint in a psychiatric institution will not hurt
them more in the long run that a longer stint in prison, for they are
fairly likely to end up on psych drugs for life. What this shows, is
not that a little bit of psychiatry is the answer—but that neither the
psychiatric system nor the prison system work—and we need to be tackling
both institutions simultaneously. And here precisely is the folly of
tackling the societal dilemmas that face us piecemeal. And indeed of
accepting any kind of incarceral answer.
That noted, it is not that Frances has no ideology. He does. It is the
same ideology that all people have who think that they have "no
ideology"—liberalism. The good thing about liberalism is it never goes
to "excess". The bad thing about liberalism is that it gets to the
roots of absolutely nothing, and as such, it cannot solve our problems.
No comments:
Post a Comment