I was recently involuntarily held in a mental hospital where I went through prison like conditions (strip search, had to wear scrubs, was locked in a room outside certain times a day, stuff like that) and thankfully came out in one piece after 8 days of this crap. I was just wondering why we subject people to these conditions when they haven’t even committed a crime?
Two reasons.
One is to ensure people do not come to harm or allow harm to others. As harsh as it seems, the whole point is to stop people from killing themselves or enabling someone else to kill themselves.
The other is to prevent illegal drugs coming in to mental health units. Unfortunately mental health services are also overwhelmed by social issues and drug use is rife. The units don’t want to deal with high patients who can be aggressive or even OD.
It can seem harsh but it’s not like a prison. A prison is punishment, while a mental health unit is often a place to hold someone in a crisis so they can’t harm themselves. The loss of freedom and dignity can feel like punishment, particularly on over stretched understaffed units but they’re trying to save lives. It’s a blunt tool as a last resort.
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If someone has been involuntarily committed it means they’ve already shown an intention to harm themselves or others. So the goal is not to stop them from feeling bad but to physically prevent them from doing harm.
The trouble is that there’s often not a difference in treatment between being involuntarily committed because you’ve demonstrated that danger and you checking yourself in because you can’t take care of yourself right now.
I cannot speak for the US but here in Germany we have different types of mental hospitals. Broadly there are open and closed asylums.
Closed ones are for people who are an immediate danger to themselves and/or others and open ones for people who just need therapy and a bit of supervision.
In open psychiatries you’re also allowed to keep your phone and get visitors (and sometimes even go home on weekends) while in closed ones, depending if your acute or not, you might have the privilege of free movement within the station or you might be confined to your room unless under direct supervision.
I mean, the US medical system is terrible in basically every way, but it’s nice to know it’s worse than everyone else in this particular way, too.
I expect there’s probably the “rich folks” version of your open asylums that are marketed like “mental health retreats” or something and cost as much as a house, but generally if you don’t have the luxury of shopping around reviews for the hospitals you’re staying at, you’d just wind up in a “closed” one here. And the person who needs to check in because otherwise they know they won’t eat for a week probably isn’t checking reviews.
I agree, it would be great if we had more varied and tailored options.