CCHR, established to uphold the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, reports that 76 years after its adoption, patients are still subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment

By CCHR International
The Mental Health Industry Watchdog
December 13, 2024

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog founded in 1969 to support the principles of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) adopted in 1948, reports that patients continue to be subjected to coercive psychiatric practices. This includes the violation of Article 5 of the declaration, which protects against “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.” In commemoration of Human Rights Day on December 10th, CCHR urged Americans to download its Resolution against Coercive Psychiatric Practices and send it to their legislative representatives to seek support for human rights-based approaches in the field of mental health and encourage them to prioritize this important issue.

The U.S. recommitted itself in 2020 to the UDHR’s principles as fundamental to all human beings, everywhere, at all times.[1] The ban on torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is also enshrined in Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the entire Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.[2] The U.S. has ratified both these conventions.[3]

Despite these commitments to human rights, serious concerns remain about the treatment of individuals within the U.S. mental health system. Involuntary commitment to psychiatric facilities, where individuals can be subjected to treatments with severe side effects—including irreversible physical damage—continues to rise. In 2020, the rate at which Americans were involuntarily held and forced to undergo mental health evaluations or even state-ordered confinement, which can last anywhere from a few days to years, increased sharply over the past decade, outpacing population growth by an average rate of 3 to 1, according to researchers at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.[4] “This is the most controversial intervention in mental health—you’re deprived of liberty, can be traumatized and then stigmatized,” said Professor David Cohen, lead researcher.[5]

This rise in involuntary commitment is reflected in alarming statistics: An estimated 57% of admissions to all psychiatric facilities in the U.S. are involuntary.[6] Public psychiatric hospitals have the highest proportion of involuntarily admitted patients (89%) and Residential Treatment Centers for children account for 21%.[7] In 2023, the number of Americans and Canadians detained involuntarily for psychiatric treatment was more than double and triple those in the U.K., Sweden, Finland, Germany, and France.[8]

Furthermore, the practice persists despite its extremely poor, arguably nonexistent, positive results. An editorial in the Los Angeles Times pointed out “Forced treatment for substance abuse or mental illness is not effective.”[9] Spending time in a psychiatric hospital within the previous year increases the likelihood of suicide by over 44 times, while those only prescribed psychotropic drugs—which can be forced on hospitalized patients without their consent—are nearly six times more likely to kill themselves, according to studies.[10]

The 2023 book, Your Consent Is Not Required: The Rise in Psychiatric Detentions, Forced Treatment, and Abusive Guardianships by investigative journalist Rob Wipond underscores these issues. Psychology Today noted that Wipond’s analysis “unearths health and social services replete with poor-to-dreadful outcomes, lax oversight, and protocols seemingly rigged against those most in need: the vulnerable, destitute, and marginalized.”[11]

This system of involuntary psychiatric commitment not only raises serious questions about its effectiveness but also highlights the profound toll it inflicts on those subjected to it. A 2007 review of studies of people’s experiences of involuntary hospitalization by University of London psychiatrists “identified many negative themes: views and voices ignored, feeling dominated under strict rules, physical violations, frustration, and powerlessness. People often felt the treatment they received was meaningless, not appropriate, and more like punishment.”[12]

Once institutionalized, patients are drugged, brutally restrained and electroshocked. A December 2022 article reported, “A lot of people get put away involuntarily. They get medicated immediately. And they can’t even fight back because they get medicated.”[13]

Under psychiatric detention, Wipond cautions, “You do not have the right to remain silent. Refusing to answer a psychiatrist’s questions, even about your most intimate inner experiences, can be and often is considered evidence of a mental disorder.”[14]

The lack of personal autonomy under psychiatric detention contrasts sharply with the growing international call to eliminate coercive practices in mental health care. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations are consistently calling for an end to coercive practices: “There is a growing consensus that all forms of restraint and seclusion in mental health services should be eliminated.”[15] However, some 37.5% of child or adolescent inpatients in U.S. mental health facilities are secluded or restrained—with children dying as a result.[16] In 2023, an American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) study found an alarming 141% increase in the use of pharmacologic restraint among hospitalized children ages 5-17 years old with a mental health diagnosis.[17]

Electroshock, which delivers massive volts of electricity to induce a grand mal seizure, is often administered without consent and forced on individuals. A 2020 study strongly condemned the practice: “In conjunction with the high risk of brain damage from ECT, [the] absence of efficacy evidence means that the cost benefit ratio is so appalling that there is no place for ECT in evidence-based medicine.”[18]

The study, “A Comparative Study of the Right to Refuse Treatment in a Psychiatric Institution” notes: “People with mental disabilities are subject to many types of behavioral therapies against their will, including medications and restraints. This is especially true of people who are institutionalized. These intrusions are in violation of fundamental international human rights principles. People with mental disabilities are often stripped of many of their basic rights, including the right to determine what is done to their bodies.”[19]

U.S. psychiatry has failed to even remotely abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its recognition of the inherent dignity and worth of every human being. The Declaration guarantees the right to live free from discrimination, persecution, and oppression—principles that remain largely unmet in psychiatric practices across the country.[20] The First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who oversaw the drafting of the declaration in 1948, said, “The future must see the broadening of human rights throughout the world. People who have glimpsed freedom will never be content until they have secured it for themselves…. People who continue to be denied the respect to which they are entitled as human beings will not acquiesce forever in such denial.”[21]

In 1969, the Church of Scientology founded CCHR in alignment with the Declaration of Human Rights and the Nuremberg Code. CCHR co-founder and professor of psychiatry, Thomas Szasz, stated, “The most important deprivation of human and constitutional rights inflicted upon persons said to be mentally ill is involuntary mental hospitalization….” He further explained, “For centuries, involuntary psychiatric interventions were regarded as things done for the so-called patient rather than as things done to him…increasing numbers of persons, both in the mental-health professions and in public life, have come to acknowledge that involuntary psychiatric intervention are methods of social control. On both moral and practical grounds, I advocate the abolition of all involuntary psychiatry.”[22]

CCHR remains dedicated to ending coercive psychiatric detention and treatment, ensuring that patients’ human rights are protected in line with the Declaration of Human Rights and the International Convention against Torture.

---

References:

[1] “Joint Statement on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” U.S. Mission to the United Nations
December 10, 2020, https://usun.usmission.gov/joint-statement-on-the-universal-declaration-of-human-rights/

[2] “Definitions of the ban on torture,” Claiming Human Rights, http://www.claiminghumanrights.org/torture_definition.html?&L=3%252553byg%25256Egvgyf%25256EEwvcbhgv%252553%25255A

[3] Dave Simcox, “Where does the US stand on UN human rights conventions?” Cincinnati.com, 3 Jan. 2018, https://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/contributors/2018/01/03/where-does-us-stand-un-human-rights-conventions/972726001/

[4] Les Dunseith, “Study finds involuntary psychiatric detentions on the rise,” UCLA Newsroom, 3 Nov. 2020, https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/involuntary-psychiatric-detentions-on-the-rise

[5] Les Dunseith, “Study finds involuntary psychiatric detentions on the rise,” UCLA Newsroom, 3 Nov. 2020, https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/involuntary-psychiatric-detentions-on-the-rise

[6] “National Mental Health Services Survey (N-MHSS): 2018 Data on Mental Health Treatment Facilities – Data on Mental Health Treatment Facilities,” Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2019, https://www.coursehero.com/file/213585613/NMHSS/

[7] “National Mental Health Services Survey (N-MHSS): 2018 Data on Mental Health Treatment Facilities – Data on Mental Health Treatment Facilities,” Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2019, https://www.coursehero.com/file/213585613/NMHSS/

[8] Christopher Lane, Ph.D., “When Psychiatric Treatment Isn’t Voluntary,” Psychology Today, 31 Mar. 2023, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/side-effects/202303/when-psychiatric-treatment-isnt-voluntary

[9] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/01/23/involuntary-commitment-forced-mental-health-treatment-violate-human-rights/, citing “Editorial: Forcing homeless people into mental health treatment isn’t the way to solve homelessness,” Los Angeles Times, 28 Jan 2022, https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-28/homeless-people-mental-health-treatment-homelessness

[10] https://www.cchrint.org/2022/06/03/suicide-attempts-increasing-in-children-including-28-in-6-to-9 year-olds-is-preventable/; Matthew M. Large, Christopher J. Ryan, “Disturbing findings about the risk of suicide and psychiatric hospitals,” Soc. Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiology, (2014), 49: 1353-1355, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00127-014-0912-2

[11] Christopher Lane, Ph.D., “When Psychiatric Treatment Isn’t Voluntary,” Psychology Today, 31 Mar. 2023, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/side-effects/202303/when-psychiatric-treatment-isnt-voluntary

[12] Christopher Lane, Ph.D., “When Psychiatric Treatment Isn’t Voluntary,” Psychology Today, 31 Mar. 2023, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/side-effects/202303/when-psychiatric-treatment-isnt-voluntary

[13] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/01/23/involuntary-commitment-forced-mental-health-treatment-violate-human-rights/ citing https://www.madinamerica.com/2022/12/unhoused-expand-involuntary-treatment/

[14] Christopher Lane, Ph.D., “When Psychiatric Treatment Isn’t Voluntary,” Psychology Today, 31 Mar. 2023, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/side-effects/202303/when-psychiatric-treatment-isnt-voluntary

[15] https://www.cchrint.org/2024/04/05/cchr-praises-state-governments-acting-to-curb-restraint-use-in-psych-facilities/; WHO, OHCHR, “Guidance on Mental Health, Human Rights and Legislation,” 9 Oct. 2023, p. 72, https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/WHO-OHCHR-Mental-health-human-rights-and-legislation_web.pdf

[16] “Adverse Effects Associated With Physical Restraint,” Crisis Prevention Institute, 26 October 2010, https://www.crisisprevention.com/blog/health-care/adverse-effects-associated-with-physical-restraint/

[17] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/12/29/study-finds-141-increase-in-psychotropic-drug-restraints-of-children/; “Use of Drugs to Restrain Kids in Mental Health Facilities Jumps 141%,” The Defender, 19 Dec. 2023, https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/psychiatric-drugs-chemical-restraints-children-mental-health/?utm_id=20231219, citing “Pharmacologic Restraint Use During Mental Health Admissions to Children’s Hospitals,” Pediatrics, (2024) 153 (1), https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/doi/10.1542/peds.2023-062784/196192/Pharmacologic-Restraint-Use-During-Mental-Health?autologincheck=redirected

[18] “UEL-led review finds no evidence ECT beats placebo,” University of East London, 23 Aug. 2021, https://www.uel.ac.uk/about-uel/news/2021/august/uel-led-review-finds-no-evidence-ect-beats-placebo citing Read, J., Kirsch, I., & McGrath, L., “Electroconvulsive therapy for depression: A review of the quality of ECT versus sham ECT trials and meta-analyses,” Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, (2020) 21(2), 1-40, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-advances/article/electroconvulsive-therapy-for-depression-a-review-of-the-quality-of-ect-versus-sham-ect-trials-and-metaanalyses/8B8A6FBE2A609D43DFC77ED778F8F935

[19] Mehgan Gallagher, “No Means No, Or Does It? A Comparative Study of the Right to Refuse Treatment in a Psychiatric Institution,” International Journal of Legal Information, 2016;44(2):137-172, doi:10.1017/jli.2016.16, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-legal-information/article/no-means-no-or-does-it-a-comparative-study-of-the-right-to-refuse-treatment-in-a-psychiatric-institution/611A04C256D173CCF94CD260E52D484E

[20] “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights vs. the US Constitution: What You Need to Know,” The U.S. Institute of Diplomacy and Human Rights, 15 Mar. 2023, https://usidhr.org/the-universal-declaration-of-human

[21] “The Struggle for Human Rights (1948),” Speech by Eleanor Roosevelt, https://erpapers.columbian.gwu.edu/struggle-human-rights-1948 and https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/the-struggle-for-human-rights-1948

[22] https://www.cchrint.org/about-us/co-founder-dr-thomas-szasz/