Skip to main content

Mental Health and the law: An overview and the need to develop and strengthen the discipline of forensic psychiatry

Vedika Jogani

Remedial for quiz 10

Mental Health and the law: An overview and the need to develop and strengthen the discipline of forensic psychiatry
The given article talks of forensic psychiatry, the need to develop better intuitions in India and the means of going about it.
Forensic psychiatry, as defined by Pollack is a broad and general field in which psychiatry theories, concepts, principles, and practices are applied to any and all legal systems. It is a sub specialty of psychiatry related to criminology. It is a common based fact that people with mental disorders are vulnerable to abuse and violation. This violation can be stemmed from family members, care givers, loved ones etc. Hence, to ensure a good mental health of these vulnerable individuals proper and advised care needs to be given. The article talks about ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ laws. Hard laws are the ones that are binding and enforceable internationally and domestically. While, ‘soft’ laws are those laws that are not binding. In order to ensure better mental health laws need to be changed to make them more complaint international conventions. The article goes on to talk about mental health in India. PILS have changed the outlook of mental health in India. Instead of it being focusing only on institutional treatments, it is also spread to economic, social and cultural rights of a person. The reasons for the failure of institutionalising patients owes to the fact to the poor living condition, budgets, and voluntary admissions. In order to ensure good health care there is a large requirement of human resources, facilities and budgets. Word has spread to show that forensic psychiatry is just beyond criminology. The current state of psychiatry has very little infrastructure, no trained psychiatrists and decisions are made by trial and error. Thus, the state of forensic psychiatry is well beyond poor. Case studies done at the Bangalore prison and Tihar jail go on to show that 79.6% prisoners had been diagnosed by mental illness and substance abuse due to the enormous consumption of tobacco. Illnesses like depression and schizophrenia were common among prisoners guilty of major crimes.  While facing administrative and logistical issues the most common problem lies in the ethical issues. There is a constant conflict between ensuring well-being of the patient and that of society. The logistical issues include lack of background information, patient’s history, behavioural and serial mental examinations along with lack of information of the family background. The article concludes with giving suggestions on how this situation can be resolved in India. The proposed centre, called the Centre for Human Rights, Ethics, Law and Mental Health, has the objectives of increasing human resources, standards of diagnostic and investigation , art clinical and resource facilities, forensic services in the country, academia in this field, research and revamping the national policy for forensic psychiatry.
Therefore, this article talks about the poor conditions of the mental care in India simultaneously giving suggestions on how it can and should be improved.    

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hardin's trauma

“After”, is a 2019 teen romantic drama directed by jenny gage that revolves around the love of  Tessa, an inexperienced teenage girl, with Hardin, a mysterious ‘bad boy’ . Hardin, the main male character, never had a secure relationship with his father. When Hardin was young, his father used to be an alcoholic with a lot of debt. When he was just eight years old, intruders broke into his home looking for his father for money, however, there was only Hardin and his mother. The intruders forced themselves on Hardin’s mother, and Hardin, who was sleeping then, came downstairs to see what was wrong. To Hardin’s shock, his mother was being raped by three men, one by one. Hardin’s mother told him to leave, however, one man forced him to watch everything.  I would assume that Hardin has PTSD as a result of this incident, and in this paper I will try to prove it. Symptoms of PTSD and scenes that prove Hardin had it: The person subsequently re-experiences the event through both intrusi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Analysing “Anniyan”: Dissociative Identity Disorder meets Personality Disorders

Pranaya Prakash In the movie “Anniyan” (Shankar, 2005), the protagonist Ramanujam Iyengar, also known as Ambi, is the host of his alters: Remo and Anniyan. While the focus of the movie is only on Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), also known as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), the host, Ambi, and the alter, Anniyan, show symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) and Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD), respectively. In this blog post, I attempt to critically analyse the portrayal of DID and the possibility of the protagonist having comorbid Personality Disorders. While it is highly unlikely for individuals with DID to have comorbidities with Personality Disorders ( Antisocial Personality Disorder ), especially with OCPD and ASPD (Fink, 1991), it is interesting to think of the possibility and analyse the developmental trajectory of these individuals.  The movie starts with the character development of Ambi, a lawyer who is meticulous and very particular ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Psychological Depth of Good Will Hunting

Shorya Sehgal Good Will Hunting revolves around the interaction of two rebellious characters, Sean Maguire and Will Hunting, who, to a certain extent, help each other to conform slightly. Will is a brilliant but troubled, young adult. He suffers from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), inferiority complex, defence mechanisms and attachment disorder. A mathematical genius, Will had a complete disrespect for authority and for his own considerable talents. As the story progressed, I was able to see Will’s personal growth as he developed an extremely strong relationship with his therapist, Sean. Sean had fought his own battles in life which had made him tough. This significantly helped Will and Sean to connect to each other on a deep, emotional level. What struck me the most in the movie is how coherently Will's journey is tied together. His transition from an inexpressive, troubled young guy to a mature and responsible one is shown very exquisitely. By the end, he was able to be...
Post a Comment
Read more