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Your Consent Is Not Required
"Deeply researched, lucidly written… an important contribution to public policy debate and a profoundly moving, must-read call for human dignity and humane treatment for all. Highly recommended.”–Tom Sandborn, Vancouver Sun
"…timely… eye-opening… exhaustive… powerful… Wipond’s comprehensive study unearths health and social services replete with poor-to-dreadful outcomes, lax oversight, and protocols seemingly rigged against those most in need.” –Christopher Lane, Psychology Today
Asylums are supposed to be in the past. However, though the buildings were closed, many of the practices lived on.
In fact, more law-abiding Americans today are being involuntarily committed and forcibly treated “for their own good” than at any time in history.
In the first work of investigative journalism in decades to give a comprehensive view into contemporary psychiatric incarceration and forced interventions, Your Consent Is Not Required exposes how rising numbers of people from many walks of life are being subjected against their will to surveillance, indefinite detention, and powerful tranquilizing drugs, restraints, seclusion, and electroshock.
There’s a common misconception that, due to asylum closures, only “dangerous” people get committed now. But forced psychiatric interventions today occur in thousands of public and private hospitals, and also in group and long-term care facilities, troubled-teen and residential treatment centers, and even in people’s own homes under outpatient commitment orders. Intended to “help,” for many people the experiences are terrifying, traumatizing, and permanently damaging.
Driven partly by individuals’ genuine concerns for the “mental health” of others, and partly by institutions entangled with goals of power, profit, and social control, psychiatric coercion is increasingly used to:
• manage school children and the elderly
• quell family conflicts
• police the streets
• control people in shelters, community living, and prisons
• fraudulently increase hospital profits
• “resolve” workplace disagreements
• detain protesters and discredit whistleblowers
Thoroughly researched, with alarming true stories and hard data from the US and Canada, Rob Wipond’s Your Consent Is Not Required builds an unassailable case for greater transparency, vigilance, and change.
"…timely… eye-opening… exhaustive… powerful… Wipond’s comprehensive study unearths health and social services replete with poor-to-dreadful outcomes, lax oversight, and protocols seemingly rigged against those most in need.” –Christopher Lane, Psychology Today
Asylums are supposed to be in the past. However, though the buildings were closed, many of the practices lived on.
In fact, more law-abiding Americans today are being involuntarily committed and forcibly treated “for their own good” than at any time in history.
In the first work of investigative journalism in decades to give a comprehensive view into contemporary psychiatric incarceration and forced interventions, Your Consent Is Not Required exposes how rising numbers of people from many walks of life are being subjected against their will to surveillance, indefinite detention, and powerful tranquilizing drugs, restraints, seclusion, and electroshock.
There’s a common misconception that, due to asylum closures, only “dangerous” people get committed now. But forced psychiatric interventions today occur in thousands of public and private hospitals, and also in group and long-term care facilities, troubled-teen and residential treatment centers, and even in people’s own homes under outpatient commitment orders. Intended to “help,” for many people the experiences are terrifying, traumatizing, and permanently damaging.
Driven partly by individuals’ genuine concerns for the “mental health” of others, and partly by institutions entangled with goals of power, profit, and social control, psychiatric coercion is increasingly used to:
• manage school children and the elderly
• quell family conflicts
• police the streets
• control people in shelters, community living, and prisons
• fraudulently increase hospital profits
• “resolve” workplace disagreements
• detain protesters and discredit whistleblowers
Thoroughly researched, with alarming true stories and hard data from the US and Canada, Rob Wipond’s Your Consent Is Not Required builds an unassailable case for greater transparency, vigilance, and change.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 24, 2023
40 people are currently reading
3634 people want to read
About the author
Rob Wipond
2 books27 followersRob Wipond is an investigative journalist who writes frequently on the interfaces between psychiatry, civil rights, policing, surveillance and privacy, and social change. His articles have been nominated for 17 magazine and journalism awards for writing in medicine, science and technology, business, and law. He has taught journalism and creative nonfiction at the University of Victoria and Royal Roads University, and also works and volunteers with nonprofit groups that do neighborhood community building. And he's almost certainly the only person who has ever published writing in both the British Medical Journal and Mad Magazine--which likely says more about him than anything else.
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January 3, 2023
There is a parallel incarceration system thriving in North America. As much as the US leads the world in attaching residents to its criminal justice system, the mental health incarceration system is even larger. According to Rob Wipond in his painful and terrifying book, Your Consent is not Required, Americans and Canadians are always just one step away from being forcefully confined and drugged in psychiatric institutions. It is the most personally frightening book I have ever reviewed, and that is saying a lot.
The mental health complex continues to expand exponentially. There are actually far more beds now than when Ronald Reagan supposedly emptied the psychiatric hospitals, considered common knowledge, even though it is false. Today, literally everyone is empowered to have authorities forcibly commit another person without recourse (civil confinement) if they seem a danger to themselves (depressed, suicidal) or to others (psychotic). A simple call to 911 suffices to have the police surround the house and subdue its occupant. No warrant necessary. New York City fields 170,000 such calls a year. One Canadian victim’s human resources manager did that to him after she fired him. In his frustration, he threatened to kill himself. Police blocked off his street, positioned themselves around his house and prepared for an armed standoff, when he wandered out and asked what was going on. They immediately seized him and institutionalized him.
The book is filled with vivid color and action, a fast yet difficult read because readers will want to stop after every paragraph and think about what they just read. There are innumerable horrifying stories of people minding their own business, suddenly being hauled off to hospital, forced to remove all their clothes (or orderlies would cut them off and destroy them) and while being pinned down naked, receive multiple injections of antipsychotics, sedatives and other psychotropic drugs to dull them into submissive vegetation. These meds are also known as chemical straitjackets.
Your Consent is not Required covers a huge number of topics, from schools, guardianships, and side effects of drugs, to the military, foster children and secret court proceedings. And every one is made visceral and far too real for comfort by personal stories from those who lived through them. Their stories are relentlessly engrossing. This unending parade of traps, torture, and medical fraud is all around us, and unbeknownst to us, is affecting millions.
Fighting it leads to being physically restrained. Protesting leads to reports you “lack insight” and are not credible or competent to understand your own condition. Co-operating means the treatment is working and should therefore be continued indefinitely. They will twist anything at all to their advantage. And no one represents the other side.
At the hospital level, it is all about control. Staff sees this all day long among their far-too-many charges and responsibilities. All they want is an easy shift: quiet obedience. Anyone who sticks out physically or verbally is playing Whac-A-Mole with their own heads. Just sit and watch the TV in the common area, because that is all the staff wants to see. That is, if you are even allowed out of your cubicle of a room. If you’re not on 24 hour suicide watch.
One of the many strange things about this psychiatric world is its secrecy. Few if any stats are kept. Public Relations refuses to divulge any data. Governments do not require reports. Police need no warrants. Court cases are secret, and over in minutes as judges quickly defer to psychiatrists almost every time. No one has an accurate handle on how big the problem is, and it shows in Wipond’s descriptions and (lack of comparable) stats. But Wipond clearly demonstrates the gigantic nature of it, and how widespread it has become in both the USA and Canada.
He found that 80-90% of psychiatric patients are not there voluntarily. This includes about 20% whom the criminal justice system has declared not guilty by reason of insanity. Altogether, North Americans end up in psychiatric hospitals at over 300 per hundred thousand, the kind of figure we got used to in regards to the pandemic. It is double and triple the rate in western Europe and the Baltics where Wipond says the systems are comparable.
He makes every chapter a grimacing shiver with personal stories. People following normal lives are suddenly and totally unexpectedly seized and incarcerated. They are treated like dirt, alternately abused and bored out of their minds, drugged into vegetative states and isolated. When they no longer appear normal, it is further proof they need institutionalization. And of course, Blacks are targeted for repeated hospitalizations at five times the rate for whites (for which the American Psychiatric Association only very recently made a blanket formal apology).
Victims (it’s hard to call them patients) lose all their rights: “Once you’re labeled mentally ill or even alleged, you’re no longer protected by the constitution. I now know that to be true,” says one who lived to tell the story. Even the Supreme Court has acknowledged that psychiatric detention is a “massive curtailment of liberty.” (Yet the Supreme Court has also affirmed immunity for mental health professionals so they can’t be sued for kidnapping, sequestration, torture, overdrugging, misdiagnosis and so on.) Victims are denied even simple access to their own medical records. Once they get off the meds, they feel infinitely better. The vast majority of those who make it out of there and stop taking their meds, detest and despise mental health professionals.
Ironically, psychiatric professionals think and proudly claim that those who return to society are grateful for and appreciative of the wonderful job they did on them. Even worse, victims who go through the hospitalization ordeal are “dozens to hundreds of times more likely” to commit suicide after treatment. Victims compare it to being sexually assaulted. The British Journal of Psychiatry says forced treatment “is not associated with improved outcome.” If anyone is delusional here it is the mental health industry.
One victim memorably told Wipond the caregivers were “as dogmatic and patronizing, as condescending and defensive as Mormon Church officials.” He added: “It’s the universal paranoia of psychiatry that everybody who disagrees with them is pathological. You can’t argue with a psychiatrist without getting a diagnosis (yourself).” When people are disappeared, family typically has no idea where they went or why.
Consider the homeless. It has been widely reported they are largely mentally ill. Yet institutionalizing them is no one’s priority because it does not help (and is not very profitable). What the homeless need is a home, not meds. What studies there are show that simply having a home with privacy and security makes most homeless well adapted citizens again. No therapists required. It is the time-tested Amish method. There are projects today that succeed with just that model. But for the most part, the homeless are labeled as mentally ill and treated as such: in and out of psychiatric facilities against their will.
It just gets worse and worse as you read on. After learning that forced antipsychotics, psychotropics, antidepressants and anti-anxiety injections begin with infants, the next chapter follows police as they trace and track down callers to the anonymous suicide prevention lifeline, incarcerating them and putting them on suicide watch. The suicide prevention line has become one the largest funnels into psychiatric detention, Wipond says. Then the next chapter deals with guardianships, a wealth-stealing scam beyond belief. One 67 year old woman was sitting at home when the doorbell rang. She answered and her visitor simply commanded “Give me your house keys and your car keys. You’re coming with me.” She had no idea who the woman was, but it transpired she collected guardianships, hundreds of them, putting ordinary people into forced confinement, until she had drained all their savings and insurance money and sold their possessions. There is no recourse. All you need is a sleaze psychiatrist to sign off for a fat fee. This victim managed to break free eventually, but lost her house, family trust fund and life savings, and now rents a small apartment and lives on social security. The guardianship was perfectly legal, properly filed and processed, even though it was totally outside her knowledge.
Because forced detention and incarceration are quickly labeled incompetence, the victims have no recourse. Readers might recall the Britney Spears case, that Wipond cites. She hired her own lawyer against the guardianship by her father, but the judge dismissed him, claiming Spears was not competent even just to appoint a lawyer to represent her. The Department of Justice says there are 1.3 million seniors under guardianships, controlling at least $50 billion in personal assets. Wipond cites one person who tries to aid them: “The mantra is litigate, overmedicate, take the estate, cremate the remains. It’s nearly impossible to escape guardianship except in a coffin.”
Wipond says the majority of US adults have sought professional mental health help. As the population grows, individuality is ever less tolerated. Anyone who sticks out is no longer just odd, but a threat. Advertising has made it seem that Big Pharma has totally safe pills for everything. So many people have therapists, it now seems normal, even desirable. Media continually run stories about the lack of power to commit the mentally ill. And to the lack of mental health facilities and beds for them. It is all totally upside down.
Worst of all are Wipond’s stats on children. Starting at birth, but with significant numbers by the age of two, parents medicate their children with mental health pills and injections. By the time they reach adulthood, 20% are taking at least daily multiple psychotropics. In Tampa over a seven year period, there were 7,500 instances of children taken from school directly to psychiatric facilities. By the age of 18, 50% of American students have had a mental illness diagnosis.
They are broken in as children, with made-up diseases like ADHD, and wide choices of non-real diseases listed in the DSM-5, the bible of brain diseases. This manual shows “there are no consensus-based, scientifically testable, known biological aspects to most mental disorders,” Wipond says. And he is far from alone in that. Meanwhile psychotropics retard intellectual growth, dull creativity and add physical weight, among other things that will show up later in life, from fidgeting and rocking to diabetes. There is an ugly section on side effects, currently treated as additional diseases requiring additional pills, but traceable directly to mental health meds. Twenty pills a day is not atypical.
Elsewhere in the system, foster children are put on psychotropics all but automatically. It helps keep them from running away, and keeps foster parents coming back for more. The state reaps a fortune from them, seizing their personal property and enrolling them in bulk on Social Security. Foster parents get a tiny cut of that. One state gets more than a third of its budget from this scam. I reviewed this in the similarly shattering The Poverty Industry, which is well worth taking a look at: https://medium.com/@davidwineberg/sta... . Come back for it when you’re done here.
Most military enlisted men get assigned psychotropics. If they don’t accept them they get reported. When they leave, the Veterans Administration will insist they continue them, or deny their PTSD status. And that can be a loss of 2/3 of their military pension. So all kinds of veterans are locked into mental illness regimens for life.
That the drugs don’t work is a scandal admitted by psychiatrists. Their association (APA) says “lack of treatment specificity is the rule rather than the exception.” The FDA refuses to talk about those drugs, but can show no proof they work any better than placebos. Nor do they have anything to say about electroconvulsive (shock) therapy, which also has no scientific basis and is very far from safe. Nothing has come to market that cures mental illness or eliminates symptoms. Ever.
The current biggest scam is that mental illness is directly traceable to a chemical imbalance in the brain. Even up the levels and the mental illness goes away. Nothing could be farther from the truth, yet this is daily repeated as gospel. A new study proves it to be definitively bogus and worthless, but it remains the guiding light of the system. Mere mortals can’t contradict the pros whose careers depend on it.
Similarly, the tests and quizzes mental health workers employ have definitively been proven worthless, assigning mental illness seven times more often than in-depth assessments. But they are more widely available than ever, used by county health officials, senior citizen programs, schools – you name it, they’ve got five question tests to prove mental illness in pretty much anyone.
States can go to ridiculous lengths. In Wisconsin, Wipond notes, a woman’s fetus is entitled to a lawyer, but she is not. A pregnant person declining to take psychotropics is considered endangering the life of the fetus. That’s endangerment for NOT taking dangerous drugs while pregnant. The industry claims psychotropics do not pass to the fetus, like cocaine does. And we are instructed to believe that. If charged, a woman can’t give her own medical records to her lawyer, because that would be a breach of the fetus’ privacy rights.
All this has led to the creation of a new tribe of Americans: psychiatric refugees. They flee the state to avoid forced treatment. But then the mental health establishments classify them as missing persons nationwide, and they can be forcibly extradicted from wherever they settled. They would have to leave the country – and Canada is just as bad.
So where is all this coming from? If we peel back the curtain, we plainly see – Big Pharma. Multiple expensive pills several times daily for life is as close to heaven as there is for pill makers. They wine and dine psychiatrists, hire them on consulting contracts, put them on committees that meet in exotic resorts, and mold them into spokepeople. It is so overwhelming that any psychiatrist who speaks in favor of therapy over meds is immediately slapped down. The APA demands they shut up or give up their license to practice – or it will arrange to have it removed by the state. Kangaroo courts accuse them of everything in the world. Psychiatrists are the exceptionally vicious front line defense for Big Pharma.
Outside the mental health monolith, research tells a bitter truth: “Psychiatric diagnoses are non-scientific, that psychotropics have no known or proven effect on any underlying disease, and that most psychiatric medications are like 50 variations of aspirin and do not show long-term benefits.” That from a 2022 Tufts and Harvard meta-study of decades of published mental health studies. The whole edifice is a fraud that as psychiatrist Bruce Levine points out, has made no progress since Spinoza, 350 years ago.
If there is just one takeaway here, if readers understand nothing else, they should not ever speak of depression or suicide as long as they are in North America. Never enquire about them, and NEVER admit to even thinking about them, even to a best friend or spouse. You never know who they might talk to, even just casually, as some of Wipond’s cases demonstrate. The risks of an unexpected knock at the door are simply too high. Never admit to researching death or depression. Delete search history immediately. Any of this can lead to an endless hell where you will wish you had committed suicide when you had the chance.
That’s sick. And it is a sadly accurate reflection of the powers described in this important book.
David Wineberg
(Your Consent Is Not Required, Rob Wipond, January 2023)
If you liked this review, I invite you to read more in my book The Straight Dope. It’s an essay collection based on my first thousand reviews and what I learned. Right now it’s FREE for Prime members, otherwise — cheap! Reputed to be fascinating and a superfast read. And you already know it is well-written. https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Dope-...
The mental health complex continues to expand exponentially. There are actually far more beds now than when Ronald Reagan supposedly emptied the psychiatric hospitals, considered common knowledge, even though it is false. Today, literally everyone is empowered to have authorities forcibly commit another person without recourse (civil confinement) if they seem a danger to themselves (depressed, suicidal) or to others (psychotic). A simple call to 911 suffices to have the police surround the house and subdue its occupant. No warrant necessary. New York City fields 170,000 such calls a year. One Canadian victim’s human resources manager did that to him after she fired him. In his frustration, he threatened to kill himself. Police blocked off his street, positioned themselves around his house and prepared for an armed standoff, when he wandered out and asked what was going on. They immediately seized him and institutionalized him.
The book is filled with vivid color and action, a fast yet difficult read because readers will want to stop after every paragraph and think about what they just read. There are innumerable horrifying stories of people minding their own business, suddenly being hauled off to hospital, forced to remove all their clothes (or orderlies would cut them off and destroy them) and while being pinned down naked, receive multiple injections of antipsychotics, sedatives and other psychotropic drugs to dull them into submissive vegetation. These meds are also known as chemical straitjackets.
Your Consent is not Required covers a huge number of topics, from schools, guardianships, and side effects of drugs, to the military, foster children and secret court proceedings. And every one is made visceral and far too real for comfort by personal stories from those who lived through them. Their stories are relentlessly engrossing. This unending parade of traps, torture, and medical fraud is all around us, and unbeknownst to us, is affecting millions.
Fighting it leads to being physically restrained. Protesting leads to reports you “lack insight” and are not credible or competent to understand your own condition. Co-operating means the treatment is working and should therefore be continued indefinitely. They will twist anything at all to their advantage. And no one represents the other side.
At the hospital level, it is all about control. Staff sees this all day long among their far-too-many charges and responsibilities. All they want is an easy shift: quiet obedience. Anyone who sticks out physically or verbally is playing Whac-A-Mole with their own heads. Just sit and watch the TV in the common area, because that is all the staff wants to see. That is, if you are even allowed out of your cubicle of a room. If you’re not on 24 hour suicide watch.
One of the many strange things about this psychiatric world is its secrecy. Few if any stats are kept. Public Relations refuses to divulge any data. Governments do not require reports. Police need no warrants. Court cases are secret, and over in minutes as judges quickly defer to psychiatrists almost every time. No one has an accurate handle on how big the problem is, and it shows in Wipond’s descriptions and (lack of comparable) stats. But Wipond clearly demonstrates the gigantic nature of it, and how widespread it has become in both the USA and Canada.
He found that 80-90% of psychiatric patients are not there voluntarily. This includes about 20% whom the criminal justice system has declared not guilty by reason of insanity. Altogether, North Americans end up in psychiatric hospitals at over 300 per hundred thousand, the kind of figure we got used to in regards to the pandemic. It is double and triple the rate in western Europe and the Baltics where Wipond says the systems are comparable.
He makes every chapter a grimacing shiver with personal stories. People following normal lives are suddenly and totally unexpectedly seized and incarcerated. They are treated like dirt, alternately abused and bored out of their minds, drugged into vegetative states and isolated. When they no longer appear normal, it is further proof they need institutionalization. And of course, Blacks are targeted for repeated hospitalizations at five times the rate for whites (for which the American Psychiatric Association only very recently made a blanket formal apology).
Victims (it’s hard to call them patients) lose all their rights: “Once you’re labeled mentally ill or even alleged, you’re no longer protected by the constitution. I now know that to be true,” says one who lived to tell the story. Even the Supreme Court has acknowledged that psychiatric detention is a “massive curtailment of liberty.” (Yet the Supreme Court has also affirmed immunity for mental health professionals so they can’t be sued for kidnapping, sequestration, torture, overdrugging, misdiagnosis and so on.) Victims are denied even simple access to their own medical records. Once they get off the meds, they feel infinitely better. The vast majority of those who make it out of there and stop taking their meds, detest and despise mental health professionals.
Ironically, psychiatric professionals think and proudly claim that those who return to society are grateful for and appreciative of the wonderful job they did on them. Even worse, victims who go through the hospitalization ordeal are “dozens to hundreds of times more likely” to commit suicide after treatment. Victims compare it to being sexually assaulted. The British Journal of Psychiatry says forced treatment “is not associated with improved outcome.” If anyone is delusional here it is the mental health industry.
One victim memorably told Wipond the caregivers were “as dogmatic and patronizing, as condescending and defensive as Mormon Church officials.” He added: “It’s the universal paranoia of psychiatry that everybody who disagrees with them is pathological. You can’t argue with a psychiatrist without getting a diagnosis (yourself).” When people are disappeared, family typically has no idea where they went or why.
Consider the homeless. It has been widely reported they are largely mentally ill. Yet institutionalizing them is no one’s priority because it does not help (and is not very profitable). What the homeless need is a home, not meds. What studies there are show that simply having a home with privacy and security makes most homeless well adapted citizens again. No therapists required. It is the time-tested Amish method. There are projects today that succeed with just that model. But for the most part, the homeless are labeled as mentally ill and treated as such: in and out of psychiatric facilities against their will.
It just gets worse and worse as you read on. After learning that forced antipsychotics, psychotropics, antidepressants and anti-anxiety injections begin with infants, the next chapter follows police as they trace and track down callers to the anonymous suicide prevention lifeline, incarcerating them and putting them on suicide watch. The suicide prevention line has become one the largest funnels into psychiatric detention, Wipond says. Then the next chapter deals with guardianships, a wealth-stealing scam beyond belief. One 67 year old woman was sitting at home when the doorbell rang. She answered and her visitor simply commanded “Give me your house keys and your car keys. You’re coming with me.” She had no idea who the woman was, but it transpired she collected guardianships, hundreds of them, putting ordinary people into forced confinement, until she had drained all their savings and insurance money and sold their possessions. There is no recourse. All you need is a sleaze psychiatrist to sign off for a fat fee. This victim managed to break free eventually, but lost her house, family trust fund and life savings, and now rents a small apartment and lives on social security. The guardianship was perfectly legal, properly filed and processed, even though it was totally outside her knowledge.
Because forced detention and incarceration are quickly labeled incompetence, the victims have no recourse. Readers might recall the Britney Spears case, that Wipond cites. She hired her own lawyer against the guardianship by her father, but the judge dismissed him, claiming Spears was not competent even just to appoint a lawyer to represent her. The Department of Justice says there are 1.3 million seniors under guardianships, controlling at least $50 billion in personal assets. Wipond cites one person who tries to aid them: “The mantra is litigate, overmedicate, take the estate, cremate the remains. It’s nearly impossible to escape guardianship except in a coffin.”
Wipond says the majority of US adults have sought professional mental health help. As the population grows, individuality is ever less tolerated. Anyone who sticks out is no longer just odd, but a threat. Advertising has made it seem that Big Pharma has totally safe pills for everything. So many people have therapists, it now seems normal, even desirable. Media continually run stories about the lack of power to commit the mentally ill. And to the lack of mental health facilities and beds for them. It is all totally upside down.
Worst of all are Wipond’s stats on children. Starting at birth, but with significant numbers by the age of two, parents medicate their children with mental health pills and injections. By the time they reach adulthood, 20% are taking at least daily multiple psychotropics. In Tampa over a seven year period, there were 7,500 instances of children taken from school directly to psychiatric facilities. By the age of 18, 50% of American students have had a mental illness diagnosis.
They are broken in as children, with made-up diseases like ADHD, and wide choices of non-real diseases listed in the DSM-5, the bible of brain diseases. This manual shows “there are no consensus-based, scientifically testable, known biological aspects to most mental disorders,” Wipond says. And he is far from alone in that. Meanwhile psychotropics retard intellectual growth, dull creativity and add physical weight, among other things that will show up later in life, from fidgeting and rocking to diabetes. There is an ugly section on side effects, currently treated as additional diseases requiring additional pills, but traceable directly to mental health meds. Twenty pills a day is not atypical.
Elsewhere in the system, foster children are put on psychotropics all but automatically. It helps keep them from running away, and keeps foster parents coming back for more. The state reaps a fortune from them, seizing their personal property and enrolling them in bulk on Social Security. Foster parents get a tiny cut of that. One state gets more than a third of its budget from this scam. I reviewed this in the similarly shattering The Poverty Industry, which is well worth taking a look at: https://medium.com/@davidwineberg/sta... . Come back for it when you’re done here.
Most military enlisted men get assigned psychotropics. If they don’t accept them they get reported. When they leave, the Veterans Administration will insist they continue them, or deny their PTSD status. And that can be a loss of 2/3 of their military pension. So all kinds of veterans are locked into mental illness regimens for life.
That the drugs don’t work is a scandal admitted by psychiatrists. Their association (APA) says “lack of treatment specificity is the rule rather than the exception.” The FDA refuses to talk about those drugs, but can show no proof they work any better than placebos. Nor do they have anything to say about electroconvulsive (shock) therapy, which also has no scientific basis and is very far from safe. Nothing has come to market that cures mental illness or eliminates symptoms. Ever.
The current biggest scam is that mental illness is directly traceable to a chemical imbalance in the brain. Even up the levels and the mental illness goes away. Nothing could be farther from the truth, yet this is daily repeated as gospel. A new study proves it to be definitively bogus and worthless, but it remains the guiding light of the system. Mere mortals can’t contradict the pros whose careers depend on it.
Similarly, the tests and quizzes mental health workers employ have definitively been proven worthless, assigning mental illness seven times more often than in-depth assessments. But they are more widely available than ever, used by county health officials, senior citizen programs, schools – you name it, they’ve got five question tests to prove mental illness in pretty much anyone.
States can go to ridiculous lengths. In Wisconsin, Wipond notes, a woman’s fetus is entitled to a lawyer, but she is not. A pregnant person declining to take psychotropics is considered endangering the life of the fetus. That’s endangerment for NOT taking dangerous drugs while pregnant. The industry claims psychotropics do not pass to the fetus, like cocaine does. And we are instructed to believe that. If charged, a woman can’t give her own medical records to her lawyer, because that would be a breach of the fetus’ privacy rights.
All this has led to the creation of a new tribe of Americans: psychiatric refugees. They flee the state to avoid forced treatment. But then the mental health establishments classify them as missing persons nationwide, and they can be forcibly extradicted from wherever they settled. They would have to leave the country – and Canada is just as bad.
So where is all this coming from? If we peel back the curtain, we plainly see – Big Pharma. Multiple expensive pills several times daily for life is as close to heaven as there is for pill makers. They wine and dine psychiatrists, hire them on consulting contracts, put them on committees that meet in exotic resorts, and mold them into spokepeople. It is so overwhelming that any psychiatrist who speaks in favor of therapy over meds is immediately slapped down. The APA demands they shut up or give up their license to practice – or it will arrange to have it removed by the state. Kangaroo courts accuse them of everything in the world. Psychiatrists are the exceptionally vicious front line defense for Big Pharma.
Outside the mental health monolith, research tells a bitter truth: “Psychiatric diagnoses are non-scientific, that psychotropics have no known or proven effect on any underlying disease, and that most psychiatric medications are like 50 variations of aspirin and do not show long-term benefits.” That from a 2022 Tufts and Harvard meta-study of decades of published mental health studies. The whole edifice is a fraud that as psychiatrist Bruce Levine points out, has made no progress since Spinoza, 350 years ago.
If there is just one takeaway here, if readers understand nothing else, they should not ever speak of depression or suicide as long as they are in North America. Never enquire about them, and NEVER admit to even thinking about them, even to a best friend or spouse. You never know who they might talk to, even just casually, as some of Wipond’s cases demonstrate. The risks of an unexpected knock at the door are simply too high. Never admit to researching death or depression. Delete search history immediately. Any of this can lead to an endless hell where you will wish you had committed suicide when you had the chance.
That’s sick. And it is a sadly accurate reflection of the powers described in this important book.
David Wineberg
(Your Consent Is Not Required, Rob Wipond, January 2023)
If you liked this review, I invite you to read more in my book The Straight Dope. It’s an essay collection based on my first thousand reviews and what I learned. Right now it’s FREE for Prime members, otherwise — cheap! Reputed to be fascinating and a superfast read. And you already know it is well-written. https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Dope-...
July 29, 2023
I went through 20+ psychiatric hospitalizations with several hospitals with only a few sticking points until the last one which ended up with the hospital asking if I wanted to press charges against the nurse who had done my intake. I have refused to go inpatient since then.
That said, I'm not sure demonization of the mental health system helps those in crisis. All the things in the book can happen and people can experience trauma because of hospitalization but hospitalization also kept me alive through the most self-destructive years of my life. I needed hospitalization when I was at my most vulnerable, when home was worst than the hospital.
Most people are not hospitalized for months on end like the book makes it seem, the average psych hospitalization is about 5 days. There are people in crisis who have requested inpatient care and been denied. It is possible to say no to medications and ECT without being hospitalized, without being forced, without being cut off from one's friends and family. There are good and bad hospitals, I've been in both. The thing that got me to swear off hospitals happened at a good one. It's not binary.
I also resent the book leading us to believe that there are two classes of people on psych wards, those sane people unfairly hospitalized because of incompetent and/or corrupt psychiatrists, and the insane who belong on psych wards and who are unable to do entirely normal things like *checks notes* go to school.
I wish there'd been more on the politics of hospitalization and less on stories meant to shock and instill fear and mistrust of psychiatry.
That said, I'm not sure demonization of the mental health system helps those in crisis. All the things in the book can happen and people can experience trauma because of hospitalization but hospitalization also kept me alive through the most self-destructive years of my life. I needed hospitalization when I was at my most vulnerable, when home was worst than the hospital.
Most people are not hospitalized for months on end like the book makes it seem, the average psych hospitalization is about 5 days. There are people in crisis who have requested inpatient care and been denied. It is possible to say no to medications and ECT without being hospitalized, without being forced, without being cut off from one's friends and family. There are good and bad hospitals, I've been in both. The thing that got me to swear off hospitals happened at a good one. It's not binary.
I also resent the book leading us to believe that there are two classes of people on psych wards, those sane people unfairly hospitalized because of incompetent and/or corrupt psychiatrists, and the insane who belong on psych wards and who are unable to do entirely normal things like *checks notes* go to school.
I wish there'd been more on the politics of hospitalization and less on stories meant to shock and instill fear and mistrust of psychiatry.
March 21, 2023
Had I read this before or when I needed help, I would be dead today. I would have been lacking all confidence in seeking help, and any confidence in help being tangible.
I don't disagree with the foundational concept that there are parts of mental health care that need overhauled.
This book however, bases its arguments on the concepts that most mental health conditions are not biochemical in any way, medicines do much more harm than any good (if they do any good at all), and presents nothing but example after example of when seeking help ending up being a detrimental experience.
The book also broadly pulls from both the American and Canadian experience in an effort to find as many examples to fit the narrative as possible, despite differing healthcare systems.
I was about to give up on this book 90% though because I had gotten the point that mental health labels don't exist, medicine doesn't work, and treatment is traumatizing, without any alternatives being presented when finally a few were pitched. Not many, but a few from around the world.
When I did reach the section about alternatives to the current system, it was interwoven with evolutionary reasons we may need these differences- including the zinger (I'm paraphrasing, I forget the exact verbage) that those who find themselves extremely low find reasons to better themselves. I'm not sure the author has any concept of those so low they can't bring themselves to brush their teeth.
The one piece of knowledge I did gain was the location tracking of the new 988 mental health number. That I had been unaware of, although now it does make sense.
More alternative suggestions and view points, with a scope based in a single country, would have made this book an informed read with a focus on improvement, as opposed to what felt like a rant with no desire for actual change- just a desire to complain.
I don't disagree with the foundational concept that there are parts of mental health care that need overhauled.
This book however, bases its arguments on the concepts that most mental health conditions are not biochemical in any way, medicines do much more harm than any good (if they do any good at all), and presents nothing but example after example of when seeking help ending up being a detrimental experience.
The book also broadly pulls from both the American and Canadian experience in an effort to find as many examples to fit the narrative as possible, despite differing healthcare systems.
I was about to give up on this book 90% though because I had gotten the point that mental health labels don't exist, medicine doesn't work, and treatment is traumatizing, without any alternatives being presented when finally a few were pitched. Not many, but a few from around the world.
When I did reach the section about alternatives to the current system, it was interwoven with evolutionary reasons we may need these differences- including the zinger (I'm paraphrasing, I forget the exact verbage) that those who find themselves extremely low find reasons to better themselves. I'm not sure the author has any concept of those so low they can't bring themselves to brush their teeth.
The one piece of knowledge I did gain was the location tracking of the new 988 mental health number. That I had been unaware of, although now it does make sense.
More alternative suggestions and view points, with a scope based in a single country, would have made this book an informed read with a focus on improvement, as opposed to what felt like a rant with no desire for actual change- just a desire to complain.
February 18, 2023
I agree with one of the previous reviews that reading this book would make me never want to seek help. The author clearly has done a lot of interviews and has managed to tie them together into themed chapters. But there is very little history or context to most of them. I still have no idea how things were, how they've possibly changed over time, or what the current state is other than everything is bad. Some of the facts and themes mentioned made me interested in hearing more about them, but the author never went into great depth on any of it.
June 22, 2024
Couldn't finish it. Somehow the author is extremely anti-involuntary-hospitalization (which is good) yet over and over again fails to take a nuanced approach to addressing mental health without incarceration. For example, he argues that the mental health system is over-funded (is he a libertarian??) and on several occasions he describes dangerous behavior like stalking and downplays it because the stalker was in psychosis. The author is clearly a journalist who doesn't understand how to talk about behavior that requires intervention even if we don't want that intervention to be carceral.
To make it really clear: this book is NOT abolitionist. The author rants about involuntary hospitalization but is sure to draw a distinction between innocent mental patients and "convicted criminals."
I learned much more about the nuances of involuntary hospitalization from Dr. Elyn Sax's autobiography The Center Cannot Hold and would recommend it far and away over this book
To make it really clear: this book is NOT abolitionist. The author rants about involuntary hospitalization but is sure to draw a distinction between innocent mental patients and "convicted criminals."
I learned much more about the nuances of involuntary hospitalization from Dr. Elyn Sax's autobiography The Center Cannot Hold and would recommend it far and away over this book
March 24, 2025
One of the best books I’ve ever read. It’s a deep dive into a system that impacts millions of Americans and Canadians yet occurs in almost total secrecy
May 31, 2023
“Indeed, the fact that all mental health practitioners and institutions involved in psychiatric detentions and forced treatment are not themselves rising up in unison to actively and vigorously promote increased transparency may be the single worst indictment against them. They undermine their own claims that they help more than they harm, and fail to prove themselves worthy trustees of the extraordinary legal powers they’ve been given. Consequently, mental health laws have developed into a power that’s out of control—a weapon too dangerous for anyone to safely wield.”
October 7, 2023
akin to Robert Whitaker
Without brave souls such as Robert Whittaker and now Rob Wipond, many would not know of the horrors that the psychiatric industrial complex has committed. As a psychiatric survivor, I can attest to the truth and depth of this well researched book. It asks a lot of questions and wields a lot of answers. In conclusion, we are living in a dystopian nightmare of hiding in plain sight, power mongering institutions and legal frameworks that hold a fine line between “us” and “them. A must read for every human at this point. Thank you Mr Wipond.
Without brave souls such as Robert Whittaker and now Rob Wipond, many would not know of the horrors that the psychiatric industrial complex has committed. As a psychiatric survivor, I can attest to the truth and depth of this well researched book. It asks a lot of questions and wields a lot of answers. In conclusion, we are living in a dystopian nightmare of hiding in plain sight, power mongering institutions and legal frameworks that hold a fine line between “us” and “them. A must read for every human at this point. Thank you Mr Wipond.
May 31, 2023
This a journalistic investigation into involuntary treatment of people deemed mentally ill; primarily in the US and Canada. It covers a broad painful spectrum from prison like in patient settings to forced drugging, electroshock therapy, and psychosurgery. Many of these case studies are painful to hear. Some people experience involuntary treatment skin to sexual assault.
A painful text but an important one.
A painful text but an important one.
February 28, 2023
It was a bit one sided for my taste but never the less very informative and terrifying.
October 18, 2023
"Your Consent Is Not Required" by Rob Wipond is a hard-hitting and eye-opening piece of investigative journalism that sheds light on an issue often hidden from public view. Wipond's book is a searing exposé of the state of psychiatric incarceration and forced interventions in contemporary society, revealing a shocking reality that challenges the commonly held beliefs surrounding mental health treatment and involuntary commitment.
In a time when asylums have been largely consigned to history, Wipond presents a disquieting truth: the practices of involuntary commitment and coercive psychiatric treatment are far from obsolete. The book dives deep into the lives of people from various backgrounds who find themselves subjected to surveillance, confinement, and powerful drugs without their consent. Wipond's meticulous research and extensive reporting present an unvarnished and unapologetic look into the world of psychiatric coercion.
Wipond dismantles the misconception that only "dangerous" individuals are committed today. He uncovers how involuntary psychiatric interventions are pervasive, occurring in various settings, including hospitals, care facilities, residential treatment centers, and even within people's homes under outpatient commitment orders. The book paints a vivid picture of the terrifying, traumatic, and often life-altering experiences faced by those caught in the web of psychiatric coercion.
The narrative underscores the multifaceted motivations behind the practice, from genuine concerns for individuals' mental health to the more sinister aspects of power, profit, and social control. Wipond illustrates how psychiatric coercion is used to manage school children, quell family conflicts, police the streets, control vulnerable populations, boost hospital profits, and much more.
"Your Consent Is Not Required" is a powerful and essential read, grounded in real stories and hard data from both the United States and Canada. Wipond's book builds a compelling case for increased transparency, vigilance, and the need for transformative change in the realm of mental health treatment. This is a wake-up call for society, urging us to confront the often hidden but deeply troubling realities of psychiatric coercion and the urgent need for reform.
In a time when asylums have been largely consigned to history, Wipond presents a disquieting truth: the practices of involuntary commitment and coercive psychiatric treatment are far from obsolete. The book dives deep into the lives of people from various backgrounds who find themselves subjected to surveillance, confinement, and powerful drugs without their consent. Wipond's meticulous research and extensive reporting present an unvarnished and unapologetic look into the world of psychiatric coercion.
Wipond dismantles the misconception that only "dangerous" individuals are committed today. He uncovers how involuntary psychiatric interventions are pervasive, occurring in various settings, including hospitals, care facilities, residential treatment centers, and even within people's homes under outpatient commitment orders. The book paints a vivid picture of the terrifying, traumatic, and often life-altering experiences faced by those caught in the web of psychiatric coercion.
The narrative underscores the multifaceted motivations behind the practice, from genuine concerns for individuals' mental health to the more sinister aspects of power, profit, and social control. Wipond illustrates how psychiatric coercion is used to manage school children, quell family conflicts, police the streets, control vulnerable populations, boost hospital profits, and much more.
"Your Consent Is Not Required" is a powerful and essential read, grounded in real stories and hard data from both the United States and Canada. Wipond's book builds a compelling case for increased transparency, vigilance, and the need for transformative change in the realm of mental health treatment. This is a wake-up call for society, urging us to confront the often hidden but deeply troubling realities of psychiatric coercion and the urgent need for reform.
March 22, 2023
This is a well-researched, comprehensive expose of the shocking extent of psychiatric coercion in our society—how the various support mechanisms such as ‘911’, suicide hotline intervention, police, private security, and others in a reporting capacity such as teachers, social workers, and housing managers that have good intentions actually channel people towards unwanted and unwarranted treatment that often is more punitive in nature than helpful. This book is full of important, yet frightening insights into the mental health treatment status for the most vulnerable in our society. Certainly a riveting read that should be required for anyone in the psychiatric help industry.
April 23, 2023
Wipond's exposé on psychiatry and big-pharma is a great addidition and update to much of the pre-existing literature on this topic. There is less Canadian focused content than I thought there was going to be, but this may reflect differences in medicare between the USA and CND.
December 21, 2024
”Your Consent Is Not Required” is a Brilliant book. Rob Wipond wrote in a very clear and easy way to read, engaging manner.
I believe it is a Great, Great, Great book for the professional or lay person alike.
If you have the diagnosis or don't understand what being forced into a psych unit is like, I strongly recommend and suggest this book.
Rob Wipond is an investigative journalist who writes about psychiatry, civil rights, among others, and policing, surveillance and privacy, and social change. I believe he might be one of the foremost authorities in investigative journalism on this subject in the entire world, besides being one of the most caring persons; something hard to find in this day and age.
If anyone could go back in time it should be Rob Wipond of today with his book back to when forced psychiatric commitment had started, and increasingly became common. People are frightened (both those who have or have not been sent to psych units), dying, being stigmatized due to ignorance and intolerance especially during their last days and worse. It would have exponentially had helped millions of people.
One chapter into this book and my life is transformed. This book is explaining it in ways that made it so easy to take on. The writing is non-confrontational, not accusatory, absolutely reassuring, and explanatory.
I have friends of my late daughter and kids of friends who took their own lives due to mental health issues throughout the years, since I arrived in the USA thirty-eight years ago - and it is a relief to read this book. Now I took on the task of reaching their families for some of whom the death of their loved one, especially those who died when forced into a psych unit was considered not the horrific thing that it is, and made many feel ashamed to report it. This book is helpful also for those who feel helpless or have friends who feel helpless, and frightened when not much is published about people being sent forcefully to psych units. It is a must-have for every student learning - every school should have this book. Superbly done!
I think I found this book at the exact right time. After countless years, and hours of going through the memories of those who died at their best time in life, most of which having died in disgrace for no reason other than the ignorance and condemnation of most people at the time, this book opened my eyes. Instead of me just reminiscing their lives, in my opinion, this book honors them.
The price is amazing. The book is amazing. I am not kidding when I say that I am a different person now than I was when this book showed up on my doorstep. I am more ppeaceful, calm, courageous, and in control of myself when it comes to fighting for people being sent into a psych unit. This book does wonders for the mind. It explains to those who do not know how being sent to a psych unit can be devastating, and helps to have closure. I Greatly Recommend it!
I believe it is a Great, Great, Great book for the professional or lay person alike.
If you have the diagnosis or don't understand what being forced into a psych unit is like, I strongly recommend and suggest this book.
Rob Wipond is an investigative journalist who writes about psychiatry, civil rights, among others, and policing, surveillance and privacy, and social change. I believe he might be one of the foremost authorities in investigative journalism on this subject in the entire world, besides being one of the most caring persons; something hard to find in this day and age.
If anyone could go back in time it should be Rob Wipond of today with his book back to when forced psychiatric commitment had started, and increasingly became common. People are frightened (both those who have or have not been sent to psych units), dying, being stigmatized due to ignorance and intolerance especially during their last days and worse. It would have exponentially had helped millions of people.
One chapter into this book and my life is transformed. This book is explaining it in ways that made it so easy to take on. The writing is non-confrontational, not accusatory, absolutely reassuring, and explanatory.
I have friends of my late daughter and kids of friends who took their own lives due to mental health issues throughout the years, since I arrived in the USA thirty-eight years ago - and it is a relief to read this book. Now I took on the task of reaching their families for some of whom the death of their loved one, especially those who died when forced into a psych unit was considered not the horrific thing that it is, and made many feel ashamed to report it. This book is helpful also for those who feel helpless or have friends who feel helpless, and frightened when not much is published about people being sent forcefully to psych units. It is a must-have for every student learning - every school should have this book. Superbly done!
I think I found this book at the exact right time. After countless years, and hours of going through the memories of those who died at their best time in life, most of which having died in disgrace for no reason other than the ignorance and condemnation of most people at the time, this book opened my eyes. Instead of me just reminiscing their lives, in my opinion, this book honors them.
The price is amazing. The book is amazing. I am not kidding when I say that I am a different person now than I was when this book showed up on my doorstep. I am more ppeaceful, calm, courageous, and in control of myself when it comes to fighting for people being sent into a psych unit. This book does wonders for the mind. It explains to those who do not know how being sent to a psych unit can be devastating, and helps to have closure. I Greatly Recommend it!
March 22, 2023
this is certainly a bit of an eye opener, and it supports my own priors that the government in all its forms is a horrible cancer on our lives.
i was quite amused to see that one of the people who was featured in this book, & who is now trying to reform some of the regulations in this world, is also a democratic hillary/bernie worker. why do these people think that government will be good at anything, when they're so horrible in this area? why believe they'll be better anywhere else? all they do is fail.
there are parts of this book that set my bs detector off a bit. he cites foucault several times, which is a bit of a flag. he feels very one-sided in his take on anti depressants and anti psychotic meds. i'm generally very sympathetic to what he says. i'm no authority on anything, but surely it's crazy that such a huge number of people are on antidepressants. that simply shouldn't be. but it's surely also the case that those meds are appropriate for some.
there is a stridency in his tone at times that seems to come close to the kind of zealotry you'll see from scientology types.
i still think it's a worthwhile read. it's ultimately a collection of stories, a series of anecdotes. but they're compelling anecdotes. every system has mistakes & errors, but it definitely feels like there needs to be a real correction on some of this stuff.
and if nothing else, it's a very good lesson to people. be very careful about what you say to anyone with any authority. they can smash your life. but that applies to any dealings you'll have with anyone in the government. they can destroy you. they have that power.
i was quite amused to see that one of the people who was featured in this book, & who is now trying to reform some of the regulations in this world, is also a democratic hillary/bernie worker. why do these people think that government will be good at anything, when they're so horrible in this area? why believe they'll be better anywhere else? all they do is fail.
there are parts of this book that set my bs detector off a bit. he cites foucault several times, which is a bit of a flag. he feels very one-sided in his take on anti depressants and anti psychotic meds. i'm generally very sympathetic to what he says. i'm no authority on anything, but surely it's crazy that such a huge number of people are on antidepressants. that simply shouldn't be. but it's surely also the case that those meds are appropriate for some.
there is a stridency in his tone at times that seems to come close to the kind of zealotry you'll see from scientology types.
i still think it's a worthwhile read. it's ultimately a collection of stories, a series of anecdotes. but they're compelling anecdotes. every system has mistakes & errors, but it definitely feels like there needs to be a real correction on some of this stuff.
and if nothing else, it's a very good lesson to people. be very careful about what you say to anyone with any authority. they can smash your life. but that applies to any dealings you'll have with anyone in the government. they can destroy you. they have that power.
February 27, 2024
"Victimize every organ."
Forced psychiatric treatment. Mandated medication. Unappealable commitments. Ouch.
Anyone who has ever been through the horrors of front line or institutional psychiatric care in Canada will know exactly what Rob Wipond is talking about in Your Consent Not Required. For anyone who hasn't, this book is a must read. Wipond works the case structure approach, following various patients (victims) through the analysis, drugging and institutional phases of their experiences. Most of them aren't good.
What makes Wipond's book so readable is the first person down to earth point of view. Having had families members go through the system, he's able to inject emotions and perspectives that PhD or academic clinical analyses just don't give.
The philosophic theme of the books roughly follows that of Heidegger or Foucault; that we live in a society of strangers, and stuff ourselves full of drugs and material goods rather than find close social bonds to make our lives better.
For sure, Wipond is a medical iconoclast. He doesn't much care for hospitals, doctors or cops. Sometimes to the point of making these necessary institutions caricatures. But, he is also is utterly contemptuous of the way human beings are treated with long term and experimental medication in this country and that's a valid criticism.
Wipond offers alternatives, or at least better choices, a much needed bit of light in this dark topic of psychiatric struggle.
Forced psychiatric treatment. Mandated medication. Unappealable commitments. Ouch.
Anyone who has ever been through the horrors of front line or institutional psychiatric care in Canada will know exactly what Rob Wipond is talking about in Your Consent Not Required. For anyone who hasn't, this book is a must read. Wipond works the case structure approach, following various patients (victims) through the analysis, drugging and institutional phases of their experiences. Most of them aren't good.
What makes Wipond's book so readable is the first person down to earth point of view. Having had families members go through the system, he's able to inject emotions and perspectives that PhD or academic clinical analyses just don't give.
The philosophic theme of the books roughly follows that of Heidegger or Foucault; that we live in a society of strangers, and stuff ourselves full of drugs and material goods rather than find close social bonds to make our lives better.
For sure, Wipond is a medical iconoclast. He doesn't much care for hospitals, doctors or cops. Sometimes to the point of making these necessary institutions caricatures. But, he is also is utterly contemptuous of the way human beings are treated with long term and experimental medication in this country and that's a valid criticism.
Wipond offers alternatives, or at least better choices, a much needed bit of light in this dark topic of psychiatric struggle.
February 20, 2025
I have very mixed feelings about this book. Despite the author stating his research was throughout North America, I think it was less relevant to Canadian psychiatry. For example, one of his main talking points was the high profits that hospitals make out of involuntarily holding someone for lengthy periods.
While I think a number of his points were valid and thought provoking, I found the majority of this book to be fear mongering and entirely one-sided. He made statements about medication being ‘more harm than good’, denied mental health disorders ever arising out of biochemical imbalances, and presented back-to-back examples of people that suffered significant hardship when either seeking help voluntarily and/or being formed under the Mental Health Act.
I absolutely agree that our system needs a huge overhaul: we need to be shifting towards more community-based interventions and moving away from carceral care. However, I think this book would deter pretty much anyone to seek support from mental health professionals, which is sad knowing that many people have benefit greatly AND lived through their darkest moments because of mental health interventions.
While I think a number of his points were valid and thought provoking, I found the majority of this book to be fear mongering and entirely one-sided. He made statements about medication being ‘more harm than good’, denied mental health disorders ever arising out of biochemical imbalances, and presented back-to-back examples of people that suffered significant hardship when either seeking help voluntarily and/or being formed under the Mental Health Act.
I absolutely agree that our system needs a huge overhaul: we need to be shifting towards more community-based interventions and moving away from carceral care. However, I think this book would deter pretty much anyone to seek support from mental health professionals, which is sad knowing that many people have benefit greatly AND lived through their darkest moments because of mental health interventions.
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June 5, 2024First of all, thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This book explores a very important topic and gives voice to people whose voices are usually slipped under the rug. That being said I cannot recommend the book. While the topic of those people who are drugged by force which causes them to have consequences because of the drug given or because a forced medicalization stays in their record or the different things that can happen to them is of extreme importance. Especially taking into account that when these people try to talk and express opinions about what they went through or complain, and receive an apology,... everything is excused by their supposed "illness". Despite this, the book portrays only an extremely negative view of the mental health system and institutions and could be extremely damaging for someone who might be going through a dark path and is considering reaching out for help.
This book explores a very important topic and gives voice to people whose voices are usually slipped under the rug. That being said I cannot recommend the book. While the topic of those people who are drugged by force which causes them to have consequences because of the drug given or because a forced medicalization stays in their record or the different things that can happen to them is of extreme importance. Especially taking into account that when these people try to talk and express opinions about what they went through or complain, and receive an apology,... everything is excused by their supposed "illness". Despite this, the book portrays only an extremely negative view of the mental health system and institutions and could be extremely damaging for someone who might be going through a dark path and is considering reaching out for help.
September 25, 2023
I am someone who frequently puts books down after starting them and leaving them for extended periods of time. I have not been able to put this book down and have almost finished it a few days after I picked it up. I came into this book knowing nothing about the content matter or subject but this book has made a lot of sense to me and has showed me a perspective I find valuable. I think everyone should read this book because it allows us to broaden our perspectives and awareness. I never knew how little laws you had once labeled with mental illness, and the vast extent of the power of the psychiatric industry. If you understand the deep drivers behind politics, government, and the overall idea of social control and money this book makes total sense all the way through. This is great work backed with statistics and personal perspectives.
May 7, 2023
So, wow. I firmly believe that our mental health system, like our legal system, needs an overhaul. But this book is all scare tactics, which is not helpful and can be incredibly damaging to those who need to and should seek help.
I feel like, at the very least, the author suffers from confirmation bias. He went into this project with a personal grudge and specific intent to expose a flawed system. And that he did. But that’s also ALL he did. There’s no balance here, at all.
While I can’t support this book, I do think the material provides the base for some much needed, serious discussions.
*I received an eARC from the publisher, via NetGalley.*
I feel like, at the very least, the author suffers from confirmation bias. He went into this project with a personal grudge and specific intent to expose a flawed system. And that he did. But that’s also ALL he did. There’s no balance here, at all.
While I can’t support this book, I do think the material provides the base for some much needed, serious discussions.
*I received an eARC from the publisher, via NetGalley.*
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June 12, 2025It’s just hard to read. It’s hard to read that people’s liberties are being stolen. That professional organizations are complicit in the continued harm. Your Consent Is Not Required: The Rise of Psychiatric Detentions, Forced Treatment, and Abusive Guardianship is a sad story of how it’s too easy for someone to become a prisoner of the mental health system.
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September 5, 2023
7/10
This was so interesting! I had no idea there was such a thing as "forced institutionalization" but I did wonder why the numbers of "mental patients" keep on rising as years go by. Pathologizing any intense emotion, diagnosing people through rudimentary symptom-oriented questionnaires and slapping on arbitrary labels while prescribing drugs were the reasons apparently. I learned something new today!
This was so interesting! I had no idea there was such a thing as "forced institutionalization" but I did wonder why the numbers of "mental patients" keep on rising as years go by. Pathologizing any intense emotion, diagnosing people through rudimentary symptom-oriented questionnaires and slapping on arbitrary labels while prescribing drugs were the reasons apparently. I learned something new today!
April 7, 2025
I work in public defense representing clients going through forensic civil commitment and I found this book to be extremely accurate and deeply horrifying. I especially liked the sections about medication side effects since I have less professional experience in that area. The hospitals are NOT your friends and any kind of forced treatments are NOT the answer. If someone doesn’t want the treatment then that is not what is best for that person, end of story.
April 6, 2025
It’s so hard to read and revisit but still pulls me back. When I read this book, I no longer felt ashamed or alone for what I went through. Urgently needed and meticulously researched. He tells very traumatic stories with tact and respect, which many less competent journalists and writers would not and cannot do. Grateful it was written and these stories told.
April 14, 2024
This should be required reading in every psychology, psychiatry, and sociology course. It’s not an easy read, but it is an immensely important one. This book shifted my entire worldview and I am so grateful I picked it up in between meetings on a random business trip.
January 17, 2023
This is an absolute must-read. It's clear and concise, full of information that everyone must know and is fantastic, compelling story-telling.
September 19, 2023
This book didn't make me feel good about the mental health system and courts. I have no confidence in the system now.
September 25, 2024
Horrifying if scale and scope of this is true.
May 3, 2025
bold, tenacious, and incredibly resourced
February 22, 2024
Should be a required reading for anyone in psych
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