From Focus on Victoria:
The author’s research shows that an increasing number of people are losing their rights, their voices, their trust, and sometimes their lives through involuntary psychiatric treatment.
FOR SOCIETY TO OPERATE, we need trust. Whether it’s in traffic, banking, relationships, health care, or countless other areas of life, mutual understanding allows individuals and systems to intersect (relatively) smoothly and safely. That includes communication, as language is based on a shared agreement of what words mean. But what happens when people’s experiences or behaviours provoke differing interpretations? What happens when we lose consensus around life-directing terms like “appropriate,” “dangerous,” “effective,” or “normal”?
In his new book Your Consent is Not Required: The Rise in Psychiatric Detentions, Forced Treatment, and Abusive Guardianships (BenBella Books), investigative journalist Rob Wipond looks at how an increasing number of people from all walks of life are losing their rights, their voices, their trust, and sometimes their lives through contact with an area of the mental health system that’s grounded in slippery terminology and often hidden from public view.