In late April, I attended a community conversation titled “Mental Health: Identifying the Problem,” held at Geodis Park. While the event was educational, featuring discussions on various aspects of mental health, it largely overlooked deeper systemic issues that create and exacerbate mental health crises — issues critiqued with hard data and heartbreaking stories in Rob Wipond’s recent book, Your Consent Is Not Required.
Wipond’s investigative work exposes the often-coercive nature of psychiatric interventions and the troubling expansion of mental health laws that infringe on individual rights and autonomy. Through existing research, Wipond reveals how the psychiatric industry, under the guise of assistance, often results in harmful outcomes like forced drugging and involuntary detentions. These practices undermine personal autonomy and self-determination and are predicated on outdated claims, such as the widely discredited “chemical imbalance” theory of mental disorders.
The book presents accounts that are not anomalies or one-off events in Nashville’s approach to mental health, such as patients being detained and forcibly treated based on superficial assessments during crises, often worsening their conditions rather than improving them. These narratives challenge the prevailing notion that institutional care and forced interventions are required or necessary for safety. Instead, these practices lack substantial evidence supporting their effectiveness, and Wipond argues that such approaches reflect deeper cultural prejudices and serve more as mechanisms of social control than genuine healthcare solutions.
Wipond’s book is required reading for anyone involved in mental health advocacy or policy. He urges a reevaluation of how we address mental health, advocating for a shift away from these coercive practices and toward a more empathetic and human rights-based approach. It is a call to recognize the often-invisible harms inflicted in the name of treatment and to advocate for a system that truly respects the voices and rights of those it aims to serve.
However, beware of raising your voice after reading this book. By engaging with these critiques, you may encounter personal and professional risks. Wipond’s work sheds light on the pervasive and often punitive nature of the mental health system, a system that does not kindly regard those who challenge its foundations. Historically, individuals (patients included) who have dared to expose the flaws or contest the status quo of medical practices — especially within psychiatry — have faced significant repercussions. Critics can find themselves marginalized, facing loss of credibility, professional ostracism, or even job termination. This reality demands bravery and courage to speak out and the need for a supportive community that values and demands transparency and reform in mental health practices.
Wipond’s Your Consent Is Not Required provides insights for rethinking our approach to mental health care. This book challenges the status quo and makes an urgent call for reform reminding us that our actions in mental health advocacy and policy must align with the principles of empathy, respect and dignity for all and align with the promise in the Hippocratic Oath: “first, do no harm.”