Can the Mentally Ill Refuse Treatment?
In an article for the USA Today, writer Laura Parker quoted E. Fuller Torrey, the head psychiatrist at the Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington, VA, "'You can create the most beautiful treatment situation in the downtown Hilton Hotel and give out free coffee and free cigarettes but people will not accept medication if they don't think they're sick,' [
]That's why people with severe mental illness must be treated involuntarily'" (A1). Most of the time, treatment is not performed involuntarily on the severely mentally ill (see Glossary). The mentally ill fight that they have rights and forcing treatment on them when they do not want it breaks those rights. They have gone all the way to the Supreme Court fighting for their rights. It does not seem right that those who cannot help themselves would not graciously accept help from somebody who could potentially save them.
History has a large effect on the bad reputation that......
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