NUI’s International Disability Law Summer School was incredible. I feel privileged and honored to have been able to attend and listen to renowned disability advocates from all across the globe. I was able to gain a variety of perspectives and brand new issues were brought to my attention. Additionally, the conference touched upon a few issues that I have personal experience with. One of these relates to the topic of forced treatments and interventions.

Most of the speakers presenting on this issue were victims of abuse and were strongly against any sort of forced treatments. They spoke of coming up with plans beforehand to discuss what should be done if an individual were to go into crisis, but none of the solutions seemed as though they would quickly remedy the situation. Essentially, speakers said that undesirable behaviors are always a result of some trigger. Therefore, if you avoid the trigger, there won’t be any issues. However, this is not realistic.

Last summer, I interned at a special residential school for children and young adults with severe behavioral problems. At the beginning of my internship, I spent two weeks in training learning deescalation techniques and how to perform safe physical interventions. The physical intervention training was essential, as it is the only thing that could prevent students from severely harming themselves or others. While this may seem brutish and inhumane, it is a necessity. I believe that if the presenters had different experience with forced treatments and interventions, they may not have viewed this entire sector as torture.

I do not doubt that there are facilities and centers in the world that conduct forced interventions without the individual’s well-being in mind. I have seen physical interventions and medical treatments harm individuals and cause their crisis state to worsen. Despite this, I think that when properly executed, these interventions can be a very good thing. I wish that the conference had introduced this issue, along with others, as a spectrum instead of so binary. Instead of taking extreme stances on issues, it would have been nice to hear speakers take more of a middle ground approach.