Should psychologist admit their patient against their own will? This is a struggling question that happens around the states. I personally don’t believe in forcing someone to go get help when they don’t want to. I am not alone in saying this statement, Dr. Allen Schawartz is from the state of Colorado and he has been in the practice for more than 30 years. Dr, Schawartz writes an article named “Patient Assessment: Can we have a loved one committed?” In this article he starts talking about how people are constantly asking him about the authority to overcome the patient and place them in care. His answer was a very simple “no.” According from our civil rights and along with our patient rights, the patient rights give the patient permission to refuse any treatments and medications. The only way that the patient will be required to report to a hospital will be when they reach the label of “dangerousness.” Understand, to get to this level is a challenging thing, if they are not a severe threat to themselves or anyone else then they are not considered dangerous.
As this has been talked about with several different people there are several different opinions about forcing a patient in a hospital. Listing all their pros and cons. Even with the idea of me disagreeing to the fact of forcing people to get treatment and my strong belief in the Patient’s Bill of Rights there are some positive thing that can come out of in the idea of psychologist being able to commit their patience. The first thing that comes to mind is the idea that the patient will be safe.. In the article written by Dr. Fredric Neuman he says the patient stay in the hospital is a stay away from the society that got him ill in the first place. During their stay at some hospital they are involved in things that are specially made for their own environment. Also during their stay they have the options of being involved in psychotherapy, individually and in groups, occupational therapy; recreational therapy, work therapy. (Neuman, 1991) In these kind of hospitals the patient receiving the care that they cannot get with their own family. Which leads me to my second positive outcome from placing a patient in the hospital is the staff are specially trained for the patient.
When the patient is at home, they might not be getting the attention they need or the right dose of medication or even when they have a possible shutdown or out burst the family members can’t always control that. While in some hospitals you can guarantee that they are getting attention from the staffs, having correct dosages of medication. During their stay they are expected to have some breakdowns and some outburst, the trained nurse and staff are there to know exactly how to calm them down. Eventually the hospital will having their patient to come to a end with their breakdowns/outbreaks. Noticed how I mentioned “some hospitals?” This leads to me to all the negative things about patient being forced to stay in hospitals. They can be a serious cruel and demanding places that patients want to avoid. Not all hospitals are like they seem, some hospitals has restraints, locked rooms, and lock wards. (Schwartz, 1995)Within those locks rooms are restrictions to keep them away from messing with the normality of society.
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The patient has restrictions of phone calls, not being able to see his family, form no sense of society and how to deal with their problem.(Schwartz, 1995) But what if the hospital is a wonderful place with all the rights treatment like in the paragraph written before this. This leads me to the next negative thing about forcing patient in hospital. What if they become dependent on the treatment of the hospital? IF they do, and they get released how will they deal with idea of being alone again and having no one to talk to or no one to give them the same kind of attention that was received by the nurse in the hospital. This will lead to refusal of taking their medication and leading to more outbreaks/breakdowns. They will end up on a constant cycle: admitted, worked with, recovered, relase, relapse, admit. After researching and reading different articles and basing my own opinion I’ve learned that I wasn’t 100% against the idea of psychologist forcing patient to be admitted. I could see the good in a patient being admitted they would get attention, medication, and they are safe. However at the same time I saw negatives. The possibility of the hospital neglecting them, locking them away and then the possibility of them becoming too dependent on the help from the hospital. Still at the end, the cons out weighed the pros. Psychologist should not be able to force patient to be admitted to a hospital.
