Rob Wipond, author of Your Consent is Not Required, visited Nanaimo for an author talk on his book, which takes a critical look at involuntary psychiatric treatment.
Wipond says that in the late 90s, after voluntarily seeking treatment, his father was committed for a period of several months, which included experiences of forced electrocunvulsive therapy.
“ This was all very humiliating and devastating for my father and really for the whole family to some degree,” Wipond said.
“I thought, wow, this can happen to my dad with all the family support and, any financial situation that you would want, the comforts of home, all these things that he had available to him to to navigate this. If this could happen to him that he could lose all his rights so quickly, I immediately started to wonder, well, who else could this be happening to?”
Rates of involuntary psychiatric admissions in B.C. have risen in the 21st century, with some figures estimating around 20,000 people are impacted each year.
Wipond says he respects that people have had positive experiences with psychiatric treatment.
“What I’d say is I’ve heard that story and, I validate your experience. Absolutely. I hope that you’re also able to understand that for some people, that wasn’t their experience and respect that as well, and then let’s talk about that.”
He says his work focuses on the civil commitment system, and not cases where people have committed acts of violence.
“ If you actually commit an act of violence. If you’re labeled with a mental disorder and it’s believed that your disorder was related to your violence, you get into something called the forensic criminal psychiatric system, It’s a completely different system.”
Wipond’s book also raised concerns about potentially inappropriate use of anti-psychotic medication in Canadian long term care homes.
“ Sometimes in these facilities, they’re using coercive measures just to sort of manage it. And so what we found in Canada is a very, very high rate of use of anti-psychotic drugs that just essentially debilitate people.”
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