Book contents
- Mental Health, Legal Capacity, and Human Rights
- Mental Health, Legal Capacity, and Human Rights
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Boxes
- Contributors
- Preface
- Foreword
- Introduction A “Paradigm Shift” in Mental Health Care
- 1 The Alchemy of Agency: Reflections on Supported Decision-Making, the Right to Health and Health Systems as Democratic Institutions
- 2 Redefining International Mental Health Care in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic
- 3 Reparation for Psychiatric Violence: A Call to Justice
- 4 Divergent Human Rights Approaches to Capacity and Consent
- 5 From Pipe Dream to Reality: A Practical Legal Approach Towards the Global Abolition of Psychiatric Coercion
- 6 The ‘Fusion Law’ Proposals and the CRPD
- 7 Contextualising Legal Capacity and Supported Decision Making in the Global South Experiences: of Homeless Women with Mental Health Issues from Chennai, India
- 8 The Potential of the Legal Capacity Law Reform in Peru to Transform Mental Health Provision
- 9 Advancing Disability Equality Through Supported Decision-Making: The CRPD and the Canadian Constitution
- 10 Decisional Autonomy and India’s Mental Healthcare Act, 2017: A Comment on Emerging Jurisprudence
- 11 Towards Resolving Damaging Uncertainties: Progress in the United Kingdom and Elsewhere
- 12 ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’: Recent Developments in Mental Health Law Reform in Zambia and Ghana
- 13 Supported Decision-Making and Legal Capacity in Kenya
- 14 Seher’s “Circle of Care” Model in Advancing Supported Decision Making in India
- 15 The Swedish Personal Ombudsman: Support in Decision-Making and Accessing Human Rights
- 16 Strategies to Achieve a Rights-Based Approach through WHO QualityRights
- 17 The Clubhouse Model: A Framework for Naturally Occurring Supported Decision Making
- 18 Mind the Gap: Researching ‘Alternatives to Coercion’ in Mental Health Care
- 19 Psychiatric Advance Directives and Supported Decision-Making: Preliminary Developments and Pilot Studies in California
- 20 Community-Based Mental Health Care Delivery with Partners In Health: A Framework for Putting the CRPD into Practice
- 21 Lived Experience Perspectives from Australia, Canada, Kenya, Cameroon and South Africa – Conceptualising the Realities
- 22 In the Pursuit of Justice: Advocacy by and for Hyper-marginalized People with Psychosocial Disabilities through the Law and Beyond
- 23 The Danish Experience of Transforming Decision-Making Models
- 24 The Use of Patient Advocates in Supporting People with Psychosocial Disabilities
- 25 Users’ Involvement in Decision-Making: Lessons from Primary Research in India and Japan
- 26 Involvement of People with Lived Experience of Mental Health Conditions in Decision-Making to Improve Care in Rural Ethiopia
- References
7 - Contextualising Legal Capacity and Supported Decision Making in the Global South Experiences: of Homeless Women with Mental Health Issues from Chennai, India
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 August 2021
Book contents
- Mental Health, Legal Capacity, and Human Rights
- Mental Health, Legal Capacity, and Human Rights
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Boxes
- Contributors
- Preface
- Foreword
- Introduction A “Paradigm Shift” in Mental Health Care
- 1 The Alchemy of Agency: Reflections on Supported Decision-Making, the Right to Health and Health Systems as Democratic Institutions
- 2 Redefining International Mental Health Care in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic
- 3 Reparation for Psychiatric Violence: A Call to Justice
- 4 Divergent Human Rights Approaches to Capacity and Consent
- 5 From Pipe Dream to Reality: A Practical Legal Approach Towards the Global Abolition of Psychiatric Coercion
- 6 The ‘Fusion Law’ Proposals and the CRPD
- 7 Contextualising Legal Capacity and Supported Decision Making in the Global South Experiences: of Homeless Women with Mental Health Issues from Chennai, India
- 8 The Potential of the Legal Capacity Law Reform in Peru to Transform Mental Health Provision
- 9 Advancing Disability Equality Through Supported Decision-Making: The CRPD and the Canadian Constitution
- 10 Decisional Autonomy and India’s Mental Healthcare Act, 2017: A Comment on Emerging Jurisprudence
- 11 Towards Resolving Damaging Uncertainties: Progress in the United Kingdom and Elsewhere
- 12 ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’: Recent Developments in Mental Health Law Reform in Zambia and Ghana
- 13 Supported Decision-Making and Legal Capacity in Kenya
- 14 Seher’s “Circle of Care” Model in Advancing Supported Decision Making in India
- 15 The Swedish Personal Ombudsman: Support in Decision-Making and Accessing Human Rights
- 16 Strategies to Achieve a Rights-Based Approach through WHO QualityRights
- 17 The Clubhouse Model: A Framework for Naturally Occurring Supported Decision Making
- 18 Mind the Gap: Researching ‘Alternatives to Coercion’ in Mental Health Care
- 19 Psychiatric Advance Directives and Supported Decision-Making: Preliminary Developments and Pilot Studies in California
- 20 Community-Based Mental Health Care Delivery with Partners In Health: A Framework for Putting the CRPD into Practice
- 21 Lived Experience Perspectives from Australia, Canada, Kenya, Cameroon and South Africa – Conceptualising the Realities
- 22 In the Pursuit of Justice: Advocacy by and for Hyper-marginalized People with Psychosocial Disabilities through the Law and Beyond
- 23 The Danish Experience of Transforming Decision-Making Models
- 24 The Use of Patient Advocates in Supporting People with Psychosocial Disabilities
- 25 Users’ Involvement in Decision-Making: Lessons from Primary Research in India and Japan
- 26 Involvement of People with Lived Experience of Mental Health Conditions in Decision-Making to Improve Care in Rural Ethiopia
- References
Summary
Persons with mental health issues are among the most under-represented populations in rights discourse, and more so those from the Global South, who have been further subjugated by the intersections of poverty, patriarchy, and systemic isolation wrought by colonial and outmoded psychiatric treatments. The issue is worse still for women with mental illness in the Global South, many of whom are driven to the extreme margins, including but not limited to chronic homelessness. Through an enquiry into the lives of these women, and their experiences of exclusion, homelessness, and involuntary commitment, this chapter aims to deconstruct traditionally accepted notions of human rights and recalibrate a service paradigm that can mould itself to fit the diverse needs of an ultra-vulnerable population over a strong foundation of liberty, access to choice, and commitment to diversity. The study is set in The Banyan, a Chennai (India)-based not-for-profit organisation, focussed on humanitarian, equity, and justice-centric responses to the needs of homeless women with mental health issues.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Mental Health, Legal Capacity, and Human Rights , pp. 109 - 123Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
References
Alexander, J. M. (2008). Capabilities and Social Justice: The Political Philosophy of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.Google Scholar
Babidge, N. C., Buhrich, N., & Butler, T. (2001). Mortality among homeless people with schizophrenia in Sydney, Australia: a 10‐year follow‐up. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 103(2), 105–110.Google Scholar
Bach, M., & Kerzner, L. (2014). A New Paradigm for Protecting Autonomy and the Right to Legal Capacity. Law Commission of Ontario.Google Scholar
Chaudry, S., Joseph, A., & Prakash Singh, I. (2014). Violence and Violations: The Reality of Homeless Women in India. Retrieved from http://hlrn.org.in/documents/Violence_and_Violations_Homeless_Women_in_India_2014.pdf.Google Scholar
5. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) (2016). Retrieved from www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html.Google Scholar
de Bhailís, C., & Flynn, E. (2017). Recognising legal capacity: commentary and analysis of Article 12 CRPD. International Journal of Law in Context, 13(1), 6–21. https://doi.org/10.1017/S174455231600046X.Google Scholar
Fischer, P. J. (1992). Criminal Behavior and Victimization among Homeless People. In Jahiel, R. I. (ed.), Homelessness: A Prevention-Oriented Approach. Johns Hopkins University Press, 87–112.Google Scholar
Flynn, E., & Arstein-Kerslake, A. (2014). Legislating personhood: realising the right to support in exercising legal capacity. International Journal of Law in Context, 10(1), 81–104. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744552313000384.Google Scholar
Gilmoor, A. R., Vallath, S., Regeer, B. et al. (2020). ‘If somebody could just understand what I am going through, it would make all the difference’: conceptualizations of trauma in homeless populations experiencing severe mental illness. Transcultural Psychiatry, 57(3), 455–467. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461520909613.Google Scholar
Gopikumar, V., Easwaran, K., Ravi, M. et al. (2015). Mimicking family like attributes to enable a state of personal recovery for persons with mental illness in institutional care settings. International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 9(1), 30.Google Scholar
Ibrahim, J. E., & Davis, M. C. (2013). Impediments to applying the ‘dignity of risk’ principle in residential aged care services. Australasian Journal on Ageing, 32(3), 188–193. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajag.12014.Google Scholar
Katsakou, C., Rose, D., Amos, T. et al. (2012). Psychiatric patients’ views on why their involuntary hospitalisation was right or wrong: a qualitative study. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 47(7), 1169–1179. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-011-0427-z.Google Scholar
Kushel, M. B., Evans, J. L., Perry, S. et al. (2003). No door to lock: victimization among homeless and marginally housed persons. Archives of Internal Medicine, 163(20), 2492–2499. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.163.20.2492.Google Scholar
Lam, J. A., & Rosenheck, R. (1998). The effect of victimization on clinical outcomes of homeless persons with serious mental illness. Psychiatric Services (Washington, D.C.), 49(5), 678–683. https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.49.5.678.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, A. C. (1999). Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues. Open Court PublishingGoogle Scholar
Molas, A. (2016) Defending the CRPD: dignity, flourishing, and the universal right to mental health, The International Journal of Human Rights, 20:8, 1264–1276, https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2016.1213720.Google Scholar
Narasimhan, L., Gopikumar, V., Jayakumar, V. et al. (2019). Responsive mental health systems to address the poverty, homelessness and mental illness nexus: The Banyan experience from India. International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 13, 54. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13033-019-0313-8.Google Scholar
Olofsson, B., & Jacobsson, L. (2001). A plea for respect: involuntarily hospitalized psychiatric patients’ narratives about being subjected to coercion. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 8(4), 357–366. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2850.2001.00404.x.Google Scholar
Padgett, D. K. & Struening, E. L. (1992). Victimization and traumatic injuries among the homeless: associations with alcohol, drug, and mental problems. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 62, 525–534.Google Scholar
Series, L., & Nilsson, A. (2018). Article 12 CRPD: Equal Recognition before the Law. In Bantekas, I., Stein, M. A., and Anastasiou, D. (eds.), The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: A Commentary. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stacey, G., Felton, A., Morgan, A. et al. (2016). A critical narrative analysis of shared decision-making in acute inpatient mental health care. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 30(1), 35–41. https://doi.org/10.3109/13561820.2015.1064878.Google Scholar
Szmukler, G. (2017). The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: ‘rights, will and preferences’ in relation to mental health disabilities. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 54, 90–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlp.2017.06.003.Google Scholar
Vallath, S., Luhrmann, T., Bunders, J. et al. (2018). Reliving, replaying lived experiences through auditory verbal hallucinations: implications on theories and management. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 9, 528. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00528.Google Scholar
Vallath, S., Ravikanth, L., Regeer, B. et al. (2020). Traumatic loss and psychosis – reconceptualising the role of trauma in psychosis. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 11(1), https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2020.1725322.Google Scholar
Stein, M. A., & Lord, J. E. (2010). Monitoring the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: innovations, lost opportunities, and future potential. Human Rights Quarterly, 32, 689–728. At 709 and 711.Google Scholar
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2019). Civil Commitment and the Mental Health Care Continuum: Historical Trends and Principles for Law and Practice: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Office of the Chief Medical Officer, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/civil-commitment-continuum-of-care.pdf.Google Scholar