[DominikR]

Mentally ill persons enjoy the same rights that other citizens enjoy and have their own free will.

As long as a person didn't commit any crime and is no risk to society or oneself you cannot institutionalize him or her.

In any case I would refrain from making such broad generalizations about a society. Some societies prefer strong individual rights and others prefer a strong state that tells them what to do.

[ska]

   Some societies prefer strong individual rights and others prefer a strong state that tells them what to do.

That sounds like a false dichotomy. It isn't a choice between institutionalizing people or leaving them to fend for themselves entirely. Whether private or public, the choices made on this spectrum absolutely do reflect on the society making them.

[DominikR]

> It isn't a choice between institutionalizing people or leaving them to fend for themselves entirely.

I didn't say that it is a binary choice of either forcing them into a psychiatric ward or letting them rot on the streets.

One can offer persons in such situations help in different ways, which they are of course free to reject.

> Whether private or public, the choices made on this spectrum absolutely do reflect on the society making them.

No, it does not reflect in an _absolute_ or _general_ way on the society, it is only one specific feature.

That's why I cite the strong individual rights in the next sentence.

If a person rejects any help and is no threat to anyone then it is none of your or anyone else's business if he ruins his life.

There's no psychiatric ward, jail or Gulag awaiting such a person to "mentally correct" him.

[nikolay]

I doubled a mentally ill person has anything resembling "free will"...

[norea-armozel]

Not to be too rude on the matter, but I'm technically mentally ill by US standards. I have Major Depression, General Anxiety Disorder, and Gender Dysphoria. By your logic, I should be cloistered in some hospital until I "get better" rather than work (which I do in software development for a firm) and participate in society (Mostly online, but it's better than nothing, anxiety sucks).

When does this become a problem such that your naive views makes it impossible for people like me to integrate ourselves into society? Putting up in a soft version of prison isn't going to help us.

I can personally tell you that I have plenty of agency and I understand my situation. Please stop generalizing your naive views, okay?

[vidarh]

Even people with fairly severe mental illness can function normally and make rational choices.

A friend of my family studied medicine, and during his studies there was apparently a course where the lecturer used to bring in a mental patient each year.

This specific mental patient suffered from severe delusions. He by all accounts genuinely believed he was the rightful heir of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and had constructed an elaborate fantasy world around his childhood and how he came to grow up in a suburb of Oslo, with a Norwegian family.

But here's the thing: He was in full work (I don't remember as what - a plumber or electrician or something), and lived a seemingly normal, happy life. He functioned fully as a normal member of society in every way.

He had learned and understood that, while he still believed fully in his delusions, people around him thought they were totally crazy. And so he'd accepted he had to live "undercover". He enjoyed showing up in the lecture once a year because it gave him his an opportunity to talk about what he saw as his real self.

He would debate the students at length and expand on details the asked him about with ease.

Did he not have free will?

The point of inviting him was exactly for the lecturer to point out that many forms of mental illness does not remove the patients ability to reason or their ability to function, and that often it can be hard to determine if they are mentally ill at all. What if this man was right? Nobody other than him believed so, but that doesn't prove anything. We assume he was mentally ill, but for many forms of mental illness, the line between ill or not is a fuzzy line that boils down to subjective judgement, and where the more interesting question is whether or not the patient feels there is a problem they want help with.

Of course there are mental illness where the decision is clear-cut too. But mental illness is not a binary. It's not a matter of declaring you "crazy" or "sane".

[DominikR]

You can very objectively prove that a person is missing a limb but often you cannot prove that a person is mentally ill.

Often persons will be categorized as mentally ill just because they deviate in their beliefs or lifestyle from the mainstream culture.

And yes, mentally ill persons HAVE a free will, don't tell me they don't as this would be equal to declaring that they are not human beings but just a lump of meat.

They have feelings, desires and goals like anyone else, it's just that these in some cases may be very different from yours or mine.

[corin_]

To add to your answer: mental illness isn't all or nothing, it's not either you're a normal person with free will vs. you're crazy and everything you say is crazy. People with depression, bipolar, many other mental illnesses could be completely normal when you meet them but still classified as having a mental illness. It's possible to keep a normal life, a normal job, yet be aware that you are, in some way, "mentally ill".

[cryoshon]

This is exactly the problem! The label of "mental illness" is enough for people to throw out the complete capacity of a person merely because they have troubles in a few spots. It's frustrating.

[marrs]

Add people who don't sleep enough, are pregnant, are facing redundancy, are approaching middle age, have an addiction, etc, ad infinitum.

[nickff]

What you are describing seems similar to Szasz's ideas of mental illness (, but please correct me if I am wrong).[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz#.22Myth_of_mental...

[DominikR]

Thank you for the link, I've never heard about Szaz before.

But I must say that I agree with many points he makes although I disagree with some.

In my naive view (this is not my profession) many persons that are just to some degree different are labeled as mentally ill and medicated starting with children that aren't docile enough.

Psychiatry surely has its uses helping people to improve and overcome fears / tragic events or to evaluate if someone can be dangerous but it can't be right to forcefully medicate everyone that doesn't fit our society into submission.

[Mz]

Thank you for your comments in this discussion.

Often persons will be categorized as mentally ill just because they deviate in their beliefs or lifestyle from the mainstream culture.

Reminds me of this quote:

A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?

-- Albert Einstein

Simply being unconventional can be dangerous. Lots of people who were the wrong sexual orientation, skin color, you name it, have been classified in an ugly manner as an excuse to justify mistreatment of them.

(Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania)

[DanBC]

In England: People have the capacity to make choices. If you want to take away their rights you need to show they no longer have that capacity.

Capacity is narrowly defined. I might be able to chose where to live, but not chose how to spend my money. I might have capacity for everything apart from what food I eat.

The relevant laws are the Mental Capacity Act (can I chose what I do; what happens if I lose that ability;) and the Mental Health Act (can I be detained against my will; can I be transported to a place of safety for assessment; can I be medicated against my will).

If you live in the UK it's worth having a quick look at the guides for this. You probably won't need it, but it's a good idea to be prepared for the worst. (EG parent gets a dementia illness and starts giving money to telephone "microsoft repair" scammers; your adult child develops a psychosis illness; your co-founder torpedos your business by burying the product on a beach)

In general if you aren't a risk to other people and you're not in danger of killing yourself it's hard for them to hospitalise you against your will. (At least in UK). But it's important that if you have the choice between an informal admission (you go in voluntarily) or section (they detain you against your will) that you go in voluntarily.

[chris_wot]

I have quite bad depression. That's a mental illness, and I have free will.

My brother-in-law has very bad schizophrenia. I can assure you, he has free will.

You speak about mentally ill people like they are subhuman. They aren't - they are people with the capacity for agency and they have rights. And they should be treated with more respect.

[nikolay]

Are disabled people subhuman, because they don't have free mobility? Never said anything like that - only that your illness affects the reasoning, i.e. the will as well. It doesn't have to be all the time as there are different mental conditions affecting people differently at different times.

[DominikR]

Many things can affect your reasoning, that is true. But the issue is how do you prove it, and if so, does it even matter what you prove if the person isn't harming anyone?

Coercing someone into psychiatric treatment in some facility until the person "is better" is open ended in nature that it might effectively mean imprisonment for life.

That's why there is (or should be) such a high barrier for this.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really happy for the family in this article and if I knew 100% for sure that (reasonable) action X and Y would have this positive outcome - I would do it.

But the problem is that more often than not you cannot know because we all can't read the minds of others.

There are cases of people living in (for us) unimaginable conditions by their own choice. And some of them are even willing to fight for their right to live in such a way.