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. 2023 Nov;27(6):1076-1095.
doi: 10.1177/13634593221096241. Epub 2022 May 9.

Involuntary psychiatric treatment and the erosion of consent: A critical discourse analysis of mental health legislation in British Columbia, Canada

Maja Kolar, Colleen Varcoe, Helen Brown  1 , Rochelle Einboden  2
Affiliations

Involuntary psychiatric treatment and the erosion of consent: A critical discourse analysis of mental health legislation in British Columbia, Canada

Maja Kolar et al. Health (London). 2023 Nov.

Abstract

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.

Keywords: consent; critical discourse analysis; involuntary psychiatric treatment; legislation; mental health.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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