TY - JOUR
T1 - Involuntary psychiatric treatment and the erosion of consent
T2 - a critical discourse analysis of mental health legislation in British Columbia, Canada
AU - Kolar, Maja
AU - Varcoe, Colleen
AU - Brown, Helen
AU - Einboden, Rochelle
PY - 2023/11
Y1 - 2023/11
N2 - The Mental Health Act (1996) is legislation that directs voluntary and involuntary psychiatric treatment for people experiencing mental health issues in British Columbia (BC), Canada. This critical discursive analysis explores how BC's Mental Health Act (1996) and the Guide to the Mental Health Act (2005) structure involuntary psychiatric treatment and illustrates how the discourses within these texts constitute people experiencing mental health issues as passive recipients of care. Understandings of people experiencing mental health issues as pathological, incapable, vulnerable and dangerous justify their need for protection and the protection of others. Protection is identified as a central legitimising discourse in the use of involuntary psychiatric treatment. Further, these texts define the roles and responsibilities of police, physicians and nurses in authorising and implementing involuntary psychiatric treatment. This analysis describes how this legislation erodes consent and entrenches social marginalisation. Alternatively, discourses of equity have potential to transform health care practices and structures that reproduce discourses of deficit, vulnerability and dangerousness, shifting towards promotion of the rights and safety of people experiencing mental health issues and crises.
AB - The Mental Health Act (1996) is legislation that directs voluntary and involuntary psychiatric treatment for people experiencing mental health issues in British Columbia (BC), Canada. This critical discursive analysis explores how BC's Mental Health Act (1996) and the Guide to the Mental Health Act (2005) structure involuntary psychiatric treatment and illustrates how the discourses within these texts constitute people experiencing mental health issues as passive recipients of care. Understandings of people experiencing mental health issues as pathological, incapable, vulnerable and dangerous justify their need for protection and the protection of others. Protection is identified as a central legitimising discourse in the use of involuntary psychiatric treatment. Further, these texts define the roles and responsibilities of police, physicians and nurses in authorising and implementing involuntary psychiatric treatment. This analysis describes how this legislation erodes consent and entrenches social marginalisation. Alternatively, discourses of equity have potential to transform health care practices and structures that reproduce discourses of deficit, vulnerability and dangerousness, shifting towards promotion of the rights and safety of people experiencing mental health issues and crises.
KW - consent
KW - critical discourse analysis
KW - involuntary psychiatric treatment
KW - legislation
KW - mental health
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85129870555&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/13634593221096241
DO - 10.1177/13634593221096241
M3 - Article
C2 - 35531879
AN - SCOPUS:85129870555
SN - 1363-4593
VL - 27
SP - 1076
EP - 1095
JO - Health
JF - Health
IS - 6
ER -