Okay, well, yeah, I guess we had intended to start off talking about the history of activism but actually, we weren’t sure quite how long we had wasn’t it? So I’ll just talk a little bit about the Patients Council as an advocacy organization. And I don’t know as much about history as you do Simon, but we’ve been around for like over 30 years, though Simon and I are much more recent than that, and as an advocacy movement, obviously, we are here to represent the voices and interests, not just interests with the voices and opinions and the demands, and so on of patients and to advance the human rights of patients. That’s one of the key fundamental building blocks of advocacy is to be human rights focussed, and to push human rights and to forward the human rights agenda. But of course, as Simon alluded to, earlier, that can be a bit of a conflict, because like, while Simon mentioned his own proclivities for human rights, and advancing that in a radical way, as I said, that’s also part of advocacy is human rights. But it’s not all patients are fully in favor of the maximum fastest advancement of human rights possible, you know. Some patients feel that, you know, we’re not ready for the sort of radical change that is demanded by the UNCRPD and the full realisation of Article 12. And we’ve touched upon this already earlier on when we’ve talked about and Michael, especially referred to the need for supports to be in place before, before massive radical change. And this is something that we in the Patients Council advocate for, as for better, better systems, and more support, and less, you know, less, less coercion. And, as I’ve said myself earlier, although I’m very, very much, my viewpoints are very much rooted in pragmatism, given my experience of mental health wards and hospitals; I guess, despite that, being rooted in pragmatism, I am in theory, I’d like to be fully in favor of full recognition of our human rights. And so therefore, I’m also in favor of seeing mitigating and supports put in place. But I don’t know what these would look like when it comes down to someone, so to give you an example of a situation I faced on the ward one time, I spoke assertively to a patient who had been kinda rude to me or whatever, and I told him not to speak to me like that or something, and he then picked up a chair and attempted to assault me with it. Fortunately, as I recoiled in fear one of the support staff lunged in, and stopped the person from doing this, and he was supported by other members of staff and the patient was restrained. So are we to say that, in that situation, there should be some sort of de-escalatory tactics that are somehow employed before it’s possible for the chair to be swung into hit me because, you know, regardless of any one instance, whether that one or any other, that’s not going to work in every situation. And the clinic I was in at the time, were not some sort of ham fisted, kind of authoritarian regime, they were quite progressive in that they managed situations as best as they could and I wouldn’t, I would say there’s a lot worse, hospitals out there and certainly, if you look into history, even worse. But that hospital was relatively progressive, and they still felt the need to employ those sorts of tactics. I recognize that this restraint, physical restraints, might sound barbaric, but in my view is sometimes necessary. Apologies, by the way, if anyone in the chat is addressing me, because I’m not reading the chat more as I’m trying to think of it what I’m saying. So yeah, I guess that’s, that’s one kind of extreme example, from what they might say the coalface of mental health care and treatment. And Simon, I don’t know if you want to come in with a view on that because I know that’s one sort of viewpoint of mine that you recognize and appreciated.<\/p>\n
Yeah, that was the history. But I think from what we’ve planned to say, from what I’m thinking as I’m reading the chat, I do, I think our take and Patients Council, is that there are different interpretations possible to human rights. And I get the word like hermeneutics, is a word that is bubbling up, Anne O’Donnell’s and this event. We, they introduced us to ideas of epistemic injustice, and hermeneutical injustice, and I think there are different possible interpretations to human rights and I don’t think there is one patient view or like Mad view about them. So I think I’m more, yeah, well, I was getting more curious about how you advance the cause of it and I think it is quite boring though about the solution probably is like negotiation, and compromise, and like, not very sexy, activist things, but I suppose, yeah, although I do detect in our Mad studies in Scotland a sort of suspicion about using legal remedies, as the law may be part of the problem, you know, in the text, I was remembering Hans Kelsen and you know the hierarchy of norms and international law. And I sometimes think and, and Queen Margaret, there’s a sort of lukewarmness, about whether human rights are actually going to be the right tool to get us there. And there’s a bit of, yeah so I just I don’t know, although that is what I want us to develop is like litigating on behalf collectively for patient. And I think there is, yeah, is it the only solution? And I don’t know. I think I should probably stop because I’m not I think I’m going off piste Stephen.<\/p>\n
Okay, yeah. So the bit you mentioned about hermeneutical, I can remember Anne explained it to us a while back then she but hermeneutical understanding, and basically, the way some people, hermeneutical injustice, thats what it was. So that’s an important thing to factor in, because the way we are treated can be improved, even whilst maybe falling short of this Mad, radical, you know, realisation of Article 12, there can still be improvements, because at the moment, we are experiencing injustice. Some of us, many of us in mental health institutions, for being inpatients and for being patients and for not being respected to have opinions, over our own lives, are not our well, of what happens to us in our lives not being respected, because doctors think they know best. And so I guess that’s one thing that we can try and forward and one thing we can try and improve. And I was discussing with my friend the other day about the social model, as opposed to the medical model and understanding how I mean, I guess the whole social models are understanding how humans disable other humans, in terms of society, disabling us, and there being societal barriers to rehabilitation and stuff like that. But yeah, sorry, I’ve gone off piste about myself but I guess in terms of the clinical team, the doctor having a bit less power on his own, and perhaps other voices being able to ameliorate the sort of the responsible medical officers determine the doctor over here.<\/p>\n
Yeah, and the other. Yeah. So this was about how, because I think everybody wants some change. And there’s arguments about how how much change and how quickly, it should go. And I think that there are abolitionists in Edinburgh, and how many, we argue about the percentage, I think there’s definitely reformers, and there’s a few that just are happy with the status quo. Quite sort of senior prominent Mad people. Yeah, they would tweak the system but not radically reform it. And so that’s what we’re trying to navigate is, yeah, there’s my request to push further and faster and I think, almost like I’m professionally bound, once the cutting edge of human rights activism with the reality of the patient view which isn’t always as radical as I think it ought to be. So I think how we try to cope with that is by telling stories, isn’t it? I think we can’t at the moment, I don’t think we are taking a massively legalistic approach, Stephen, I think we’re sort of telling human rights stories, we’re using narratives. And again, to steal from Anne O’Donnell, this hard idea, she introduced it to us, of auto ethnographical approaches. So I think that’s how we, I think they are telling human rights stories, but in our sort of our own way. And there’s reasons why we do it. Like, I personally would like to get more legalistic, Stephen but at the moment, we’re doing it by stories and narratives.<\/p>\n
Yeah, and I guess, at the moment, that’s one thing that the constraints that we operate under as an advocacy organization in Scotland, that context, we are able to tell stories, because that is pushing forward the voice of patients and amplifying it and getting it to people that that you get out there to the world, we produce it with produce books before. And we’re hoping to produce a booklet soon, which will be which is been sought, has been asked for, commissioned, in order to in order to promote the story of people who want to get out of hospital. And this is one sort of means of advocacy is is publishing narratives as you put it, and think about the legal challenges that you mentioned that it would be nice to be more legalistic, that is perhaps something that will be coming down the line. Because some of you may be aware that there has recently been our review into Scottish mental health law. Three different laws actually been, for us as the most relevant is the mental health or the Mental Health Act. And in in that review, they recommended that advocacy organizations are able to mount legal challenges on behalf of patients. So perhaps somewhere down the line, legal challenges is somewhere that the patient’s counsel may be able to go. And but yeah, you also mentioned about the abolitionists, sort of you’ve told me before, your sort of opinion, that based on experience and not regular study, but perhaps there’s perhaps there’s something like just over half of the patient population would really be for complete abolition, and perhaps about under half, are maybe gradualist, whether that’s rapid gradualists, or slow gradualists, and then perhaps a small percentage, basically believes the status quo is necessary and desirable and necessary and\/or desirable.<\/p>\n
And I think the next slide had yeah, are sort of tactics, if that’s what you were meant to be discussing, was like how we are trying to sort of bring people with us, isn’t it? It’s not that we’re going at the pace of the sprt of slowest, most human rights suspicious person, but I think we are developing tactics to try and raise awareness, but I think, yeah, it feels like we’re miles behind Andrea and Colombia and South America. Yeah. And that, and that is frustrating to me but we’re still at this sort of convincing ourselves that we deserve human rights stage is I suppose why?<\/p>\n
Yeah. Yeah, I think was back in 2003. At that stage, we were actually quite the most advanced country in terms of human rights and so on, when we came out with our mental health legislation, and that was 20 years ago, and now we’re like way behind the pack.<\/p>\n
That’s a story Scotland likes to tell itself. We’re so progressive and forward thinking but yeah, I think over time, I’m becoming, I don’t think that’s necessarily true. And you look at South America, yeah, so I think I’d like to hear from other jurisdictions, what works, yeah because I don’t think what we’re doing is working well enough or fast enough Stephen, I don’t.<\/p>\n
Yeah, although, and I think we’re possibly at a crucial point in time at the moment. Not are not referring necessarily to or not just to the global sort of context that Michael says, this is a crucial time, I’m referring to in the Scottish context where this review of Scottish mental health law had just been conducted and there was a report in September last year, and you know, who knows what’s gonna come out of it? Who knows how the government are going to react and how many of the recommendations they’re going to accept and act on but it could be it could be quite a big change, if you ask me, it could be it could be huge of doing shit Simon. It’s not going to be as huge as you would like it to be but I still think it might be significant.<\/p>\n
Yeah, and I suppose I don’t, yeah, I’m getting increasingly frustrated and then people will say, well, that this is a cultural change that phrase is getting bandied around a lot. And it’s gonna take 20 years, you know, for society to come around to thinking that you could, like people will make their own decisions. You just have to wait for society to catch up. Yeah, to be that small. It’s like the Council of despair. But as I say, I feel like I can, I can only push things so far, Stephen before, people will rightly say, you’re not actually representing a patient view. You’re just representing an activist view?<\/p>\n
Yeah, yeah. We’ve got a couple of minutes left Simon before our allocated time, I thought I’d mention some some of the some of the conflicts that have arisen within our organization, within the patience Council, because sometimes the opposing views that we’ve been discussing, sometimes they come out in our debates and in our meetings, and sometimes they can be sometimes they can be difficult. And I guess it’s something that it’s only natural that in an organization with multiple different people with different views, there’s going to be some some conflict sometimes. And yeah, I just thought an interesting point from the people might want to hear about is the the conflict within our organization sometimes.<\/p>\n
Yeah, so we have mastered, but then I think, I think that’s what I’m saying is we don’t necessarily talk about this to be we do talk about and we also have massive arguments. And I shout and swear and like throw things that yeah because it is, Yeah, we need to sort of have that, right. I don’t think we have really, had it out as a movement, really, and I don’t think we are like united and clear and as I say it, we’re so far ahead other other jurisdictions that yeah, we need we need help, I think.<\/p>\n
Hmm, fair enough. Maybe we’re not know we should end it last 20 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"parent":0,"menu_order":3,"template":"","meta":{"pb_part_invisible":null,"pb_part_invisible_string":"on"},"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-88","part","type-part","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/capacitydecisionmaking\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/capacitydecisionmaking\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/capacitydecisionmaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/part"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/capacitydecisionmaking\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/capacitydecisionmaking\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/88\/revisions\/90"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/capacitydecisionmaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/capacitydecisionmaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=88"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/capacitydecisionmaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}