After day three of the conference, I have found myself surprised about much of the conversation topics. The theme of the conference, psycho-social disabilities, has interested me. I had never before thought about mental health issues as disabilities, but now after taking part in the conference and listening to the speakers, I wonder why it was not an obvious connection from the beginning and why, even though by law they are meant to be recognized as disabilities, many people don’t think of them together.

I have also been thinking a lot about the applications and feasibility of alternative solutions to treatments as well as the implications of legislation such as Advanced Directives. Today we learned that advanced directives are legal documents that are meant to assert the medical wishes of a person who may be in a state in which they are deemed incapable of making their own decisions. An advanced directive is meant to restore control over their treatment and engage in self directed care. The speaker who talked about this topic gave examples of people who’d had their rights denied and had been forced into treatment. She stated that these people felt vulnerable and helpless and that they felt that they could not trust anyone because of the abuse that they had faced in the institutions.

On paper, an advanced directive seems like it would be an amazing tool for a person with a psycho-social disorder to use in order to ensure that they are able to get the treatment that they hope for, however, there are many caveats that may prevent this from actually happening in practice. In many places, advanced directives do not actually hold any legal standing. In places like this, what can be done to ensure that rights are not violated? Furthermore, the speaker also talked about how in many places, even when advanced directives do have legal standing, government officials and institution workers can turn the cheek to abuses and cover it up. In cases like this, there is absolutely nothing that can be done to help prevent forced treatment.

The theme of the conference is mental health so we have mainly been discussing psycho-social disabilities and how advanced directives can help prevent abuse for service users with these types of disabilities, but I am assuming that a person with an intellectual disability wouldn’t be able to have an advanced directive. In this case, there is again, nothing in place to help ensure that they get proper care and treatment. Like with most of the issues discussed at the conference, in theory and on paper, legislation like this seems as though it would have incredible implications, however, in practice, it ma;y not actually be feasible to use this as an effective way to ensure fair treatment.