A response to “Penn ethicists call for the return of the mental asylum”

Originally posted on Tumblr (k-pagination.tumblr.com)

A response to “Penn ethicists call for the return of the mental asylum”

Adapted from Facebook.

Summary [tw mental institutions at link]: UPenn bioethicists are proposing for the return of a patient-controlled mental asylum that would help keep the mentally ill out of prisons and with a place to stay so they are not homeless.

In 1977, Judi Chamberlin, a former mental patient, wrote, “The whole experience of mental hospitalization promotes weakness and dependency. Not only are the lives of the patients controlled, but the patients are constantly told that such control is for their own good, which they are unable to see because of their mental illness. Patients become unable to trust their own judgment, become indecisive, overly submissive to authority, frightened of the outside world. The antitherapeutic nature of mental hospitalization has long been recognized.”

We need community supports. It has been known by mental patients who founded their own liberation movements and their own support groups. It was legally ruled as such for states in 1999 in Olmstead v. L.C., which mandated that states must provide community integration supports before institutions.

State-run or not, we should not be in institutions.

If the problem is that we are going into prisons and into the streets, then there are not enough community supports in place.

The principle of “charity” that said it would be more humane to house us in institutions to get us off the street is what caused the original burst of institutions. What makes anyone think this would be different?

The article says “He envisions asylums built in a campuslike environment with varying degrees of security. They would be “patient-centered and collaborative,” and “modeled on the principles of the recovery movement, which emphasizes patient autonomy to the extent that that’s possible.”

The first problem is that “varying degrees of security” - no one would be free of the institution, to come and go as they please. “Security” translates to “they only leave and go places when we tell them to.” Additionally, the “patient autonomy to the extent that that’s possible” part essentially leaves that in control of the “professionals” - the extent to which patients can make decisions becomes largely dominated by the professionals.

The second problem is places have already tried that and it failed because the staff ended up mostly controlling it, even if it started out perfectly “come and go as you please” (see: Fountain House). The division between those seen as “sick” and “needing help” and the “normal” and “helpers” tends to get very wide very quickly. It is also kind of a slippery slope thing where you can start a place with the best of intentions and it all goes wrong, and then more institutions will happen and we’ll be back in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s before you know it.

Judi Chamberlin also wrote: “A tremendous gulf exists between patients and staff in mental institutions. Patients are seen as sick, untrustworthy, and needing constant supervision. Staff members are seen as competent, knowledgeable natural leaders.”
This is still largely the case with stigma against mental illness and disability. The stigma is too pervasive for that to even begin to work - with any level of “staff member.”

No amount of mental institutions will help the mentally ill in the long run. These places damage people’s self-worth. They create a sense that the person cannot return to the outside world, that the person is broken. No matter how altruistic the intentions, they do not work. At best, they trap people for significant periods of time in places with little to no freedom. At worst, they degrade into physical abuse, malnutrition, overcrowding, and injury. Best or worst, they depersonalize, dehumanize, and remove control from people.