Arguments Against Community Treatment Orders

Psychiatry has come a long since asylums ruled the mental health world. Has society today moved forward from this harsh history? Mental health is a widely understood term, with various treatment options for those who are in need. Community treatment orders is one option that is offered. However, such option may be an example of the system moving two steps back towards its olds regime. This paper will analyze the debate towards the ethics behind Community Treatment Orders.

Community treatment order is defined as “the legal provision by which a physician may require a person with a mental illness who meets specific criteria to follow a course of treatment while living in the community.”(O’Reilly, Richard). To the average reader this definition
Community treatment orders are given to individuals who refuse therapy. Such extreme force into medication and or treatment seems barbaric. Furthermore, a person who has a severe mental illness may be incapable of understand their clinical situation (Jose, Manual), making it more difficult to agree with a third party who has no familial connection to this individual to make decisions.
As we are one month into the year 2016 it would be assumed that society has conveyed itself from the removal of a persons right to form decisions. The book Tranquil Prisons presents a thought provoking case study that perfect depicts the stripping of a persons right to choose. In the Mullins case, the individual involved was experiencing some challenges in their life, which induced symptoms of anxiety that brought him to voluntarily seek help. In short, the medical team wrongfully treated the patient with medication putting him in a state where he could not make the proper decisions. This is a perfect example of coercion through the hand of