Is Forced Treatment of Seriously Mentally Ill Individuals Justifiable? Essay Example

Many American suffer from mental illness. Mental illness is defined as a disorder of thought or reasoning that makes a person unable to cope with ordinary day to day life. Some people with mental illness may intentionally or unintentionally hurt themselves or others. Often people suffering from mental illness may threaten to hurt themselves. Some people suffering from mental illness are unable to attend to their basic needs of clothing, eating, maintaining shelter.  Drug or alcohol dependency may also stem from an underlying mental illness.  Sadly, many people who suffer from mental illness are unaware of their conditions. Many of them do not believe they are ill and refuse to take medication to control and treat their symptoms because they lack awareness of their mental condition.  It is best for the state to intervene and force people who are suffering from extreme mental illness to receive treatment.

I believe that people who are suffering from mental illness should be forced to receive treatment because their mental capacity does not allow them to understand that there is something wrong with them. This issue is particularly important to me because I have several family members who suffer from mental illness. I have a sister who from schizophrenia and has been unable to care for herself since she was a teenager at the onset of the disorder. She does well when she is taking her medication, but she often refuses to take her medicine. When she has been off of her medicine for a period of time she becomes violent and paranoid. She attempts to hurt herself, as well as anyone else around her. She will refuse to eat because she believes she is being poisoned. Without forced intervention, it would be impossible for her to live. Likewise, I have another sister who is married to a man who suffers from drug addiction. Through therapy, he was able to discover that his addiction was a combination of mental and physical illness. He suffered from bipolar disorder prior to becoming addicted to cocaine. Had he not been forced into drug treatment, they would have never known that he suffered from mental illness. He had repeatedly tried to stay clean, but relapsed over and over again. In treatment, he learned about bi-polar disorder and how to control the symptoms. After being placed on medications for the regulation of the disorder, he has been able to maintain his sobriety.

Gottstein is against forced treatment of mental illnesses. They believe forcing treatment is just a way for law makers to skew the way people view mental health in the United States. He believes that forcing a person to receive treatment is an infringement of the person’s civil rights. He discusses how the judge may say that the person is too crazy to understand what is best for them. He argues that a less restrictive alternative would be better than forcing a person to take a chemical that they do not want to put into their bodies’. He even discusses that the Constitution gives a person the right to refuse treatment if they are competent. Well, what about the people who are suffering from mental illness and are not competent enough to make a choice in their best interest?  Although this practice is a good theory, it will be difficult to delegate. Who would decide if a person is competent or not? How long would the process take and what would the victim and his/her family be doing during the process. Some people who are mentally ill are suicidal and violent. When loved one of these type mentally ill patients have them arrested or taken to a hospital, they need immediate medical attention.

Brakel supports forced treatment because he is against the anti-psychotic drugs because he feels they produce more side affects than the actual disorder.  He discusses how the early drugs were introduced and were referred to as tranquillizers. The drugs are very sedative and induce a lethargic state for the people who take them. He feels this is unfair because people under these medication are often in a “zombie” state and have little more control over their bodies than they did while suffering from the mental illness. Because of these side effects, he believes that every patient should have the right to refuse treatment. Nonetheless, he believes that forced treatment should be administered only after the physician has failed to convince the client that he/she needs treatment. In other words, forcing treatment should be a last resort when all else has failed and the benefits for the patient outweighs the pit falls of state laws.

In conclusion, I believe that forced treatment is important and should be enforced in severe situations. When a patient is unable to care for themselves, at risk of hurting themselves or someone else, or cannot provide adequate day to day living accommodations, forced treatment should be enforced. By forcing them to take treatment, the mentally ill patient may be able to provide these accommodations for themselves.  Although to many, it may seem that forcing treatment upon the mentally ill is an infringement of rights; however, it is a risk to society to allow mentally ill people to hurt unknowing citizens. It is also an atrocity to continue putting mentally ill people in prisons for crimes they have committed. Often mentally ill people live their lives in and out of jails and other have lived most of their adult lives in prison. I believe the greater good is to medicate these individuals.