Many years ago, soon after I got out of the mental health system I applied to see my hospital notes. They arrived, two inches thick, inside some tidy brown folders.

I was shocked. I knew that the psychiatrists’ main interest in me was my psychopathology. I knew they found me frustrating, because their treatments didn’t work and I kept coming back. I knew they were irritated when I questioned their expertise.  But what I don’t know until I read my notes is how little regard they had for...

Continue reading ...

Western culture places a high value on freedom of the individual. We only justify the removal of freedoms when citizens transgress or are regarded as not fully human. Since the eighteenth century enlightenment, rationality has become the pinnacle of full humanity. People seen to lack rationality are easily denied full human status and full human freedoms; among them are slaves, women and mad people.  

There is a growing international movement to abolish special legislation allowing compulsory ...
Continue reading ...