![\"CCHR](\"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/images\/25-0527-s2p-cchr-mandated-300dpi.jpg\")
Image caption: \u201cInvoluntary medication, electroshock, even sterilization \u2014 these are inhuman practices. Under international law, they constitute torture. There is an urgent need to ban all coercive and non-consensual measures in psychiatric settings.\u201d \u2013 Amalia Gamio, Vice Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.<\/em><\/p>\n
A 2021 NIH-funded study published in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology<\/em> found that 70% of youth aged 16\u201327 who were involuntarily hospitalized reported long-lasting distrust of clinicians\u2014even when they remained in therapy. Meanwhile, a Cochrane Review concluded that AOT laws showed no consistent benefit over voluntary care.[2]<\/p>\n Many mental health consumers are also forced to accept involuntary treatment in the community by being made subject to community treatment orders (CTOs), under threat that non-compliance can result in them being detained against their will in inpatient facilities and institutions.[3]<\/p>\n A broader 2016 systematic review published in The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry<\/em> analyzed more than 80 studies on CTOs, including three randomized controlled trials and multiple meta-analyses. The result: \u201cNo evidence of patient benefit.\u201d CTOs did not reduce hospitalizations or improve quality of life\u2014but did result in patients spending significantly more time under coercive state psychiatric control.[4]<\/p>\n Patients are often forced onto antipsychotic drugs. Bioethicist Carl Elliott says such neuroleptics cause \u201ctardive dyskinesia, a writhing, twitching motion of the mouth and tongue that can be permanent.\u201d Psychotropic drug side effects can include violent behavior, aggression, paranoia, psychosis, dangerously high body temperatures, irregular heartbeat, and heart conditions, disorientation, delusion, lack of coordination, suicidal tendencies, and numerous physical problems.[5]<\/p>\n Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International says, \u201cIronically, the very side effects of antipsychotic drugs\u2014such as agitation and aggression\u2014are the same behaviors often cited to justify forced hospitalization and involuntary treatment in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet, under AOT regimes, complaints about side effects or treatment refusals are used against patients as evidence of illness. The term \u201canosognosia\u201d\u2014defined as an inability to recognize one\u2019s illness\u2014is routinely invoked to override consent, framing resistance as delusional and justifying further force.<\/p>\n As one media source put it: \u201cIt casts resistance as malfunction… Instead of seeing dissent as meaningful or contextual, it reframes it as a symptom of a broken brain. This framing is not just misguided\u2014it\u2019s dangerous.\u201d[6]<\/p>\n Amalia Gamio, Vice Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, helped open CCHR\u2019s Traveling Exhibit<\/a>, Psychiatry: An Industry of Death<\/em> in Los Angeles on May 17, denounced global psychiatric coercion: \u201cInvoluntary medication, electroshock, even sterilization \u2014 these are inhuman practices. Under international law, they constitute torture. There is an urgent need to ban all coercive and non-consensual measures in psychiatric settings.\u201d<\/p>\n Rev. Frederick Shaw, Jr., President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Inglewood-South Bay Branch, condemned how psychiatry disproportionately targets African Americans. \u201cMore than 27% of Black youth\u2014already impacted by racism\u2014are pathologized with labels like \u2018Oppositional Defiant Disorder,\u2019 which has no medical test,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis mirrors how Black civil rights leaders in the 1960s were once labeled with \u2018protest psychosis\u2019 to justify drugging them with antipsychotics,\u201d he added. \u201cPsychiatry didn\u2019t just participate in suppressing Black voices\u2014it orchestrated it. And they\u2019re still doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n Psychiatric diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders<\/em> (DSM) are not discovered through scientific testing but are voted into existence by APA committees. CCHR says despite the absence of objective medical proof for these labels, they can create lifelong patients to be drugged and subjected to involuntary interventions.<\/p>\n Forced psychiatric practices have been condemned by the United Nations (UN) and World Health Organization (WHO), which have repeatedly called for an end to forced institutionalization, electroshock, drugging, and community-based coercive measures.[7]<\/p>\n In the U.S., over 37% of children and youth in psychiatric facilities are subjected to seclusion or restraint.[8] Some\u2014as young as 7\u2014have died under these conditions. In multiple cases, medical examiners ruled the deaths homicides, yet prosecutions have been rare.[9] \u201cThis is not mental healthcare. This is systemic cruelty and homicide,\u201d adds Eastgate.<\/p>\n CCHR and its global network are demanding regulations that prohibit coercive psychiatric treatment. \u201cThese are abuses. Forced treatment is torture passed off as mental health ‘care,\u2019\u201d CCHR says.<\/p>\n About CCHR<\/strong><\/a>: <\/strong><\/p>\n The group was co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist and author Prof. Thomas Szasz. CCHR has exposed and helped bring accountability for psychiatric abuses globally. Its advocacy now echoes international calls by the UN and WHO to end coercive mental health practices.<\/p>\n To learn more, visit:<\/strong> https:\/\/www.cchrint.org\/2025\/05\/23\/end-mandated-community-psychiatric-programs\/<\/a><\/p>\n SOURCES:<\/strong><\/p>\n [1] \u201cBrave New Pittsburgh: Forced Use of Psychotropic Pharmaceuticals is Coming,\u201d Popular Rationalism<\/em>, 16 May 2025, https:\/\/popularrationalism.substack.com\/p\/brave-new-pittsburgh-forced-use-of<\/a><\/p>\n [2] https:\/\/popularrationalism.substack.com\/p\/brave-new-pittsburgh-forced-use-of<\/a><\/p>\n [3] \u201cEnsuring compulsory treatment is used as a last resort: a narrative review of the knowledge about Community Treatment Orders,\u201d Psychiatry, Psychology and Law<\/em>, 6 Jan 2025, https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/13218719.2024.2421168#d1e194<\/a><\/p>\n [4] https:\/\/popularrationalism.substack.com\/p\/brave-new-pittsburgh-forced-use-of<\/a><\/p>\n [5] https:\/\/www.cchrint.org\/2022\/04\/04\/cmhc-programs-can-harm-and-increase-the-homeless\/<\/a>; Susan Perry, \u201cRecruitment of homeless people for drug trials raises serious ethical issues, U bioethicist says,\u201d MinnPost<\/em>, 11 Aug. 2014, https:\/\/www.minnpost.com\/second-opinion\/2014\/08\/recruitment-homeless-people-drug-trials-raises-serious-ethical-issues-u-bioet\/<\/a>; https:\/\/medium.com\/matter\/did-big-pharma-test-your-meds-on-homeless-people-a6d8d3fc7dfe<\/a><\/p>\n [6] \u201cNot Broken, Not Sick: A Rebellion Against the Anosognosia Frame,\u201d Underground Transmissions<\/em>, 13 May 2025 https:\/\/undergroundtransmissions.substack.com\/p\/not-broken-not-sick-a-rebellion-against<\/a><\/p>\n [7] World Health Organization, \u201cGuidance on mental health policy and strategic action plans,\u201d Module 1, pp 3-4, 2025<\/p>\n [8] https:\/\/www.cchrint.org\/2025\/05\/17\/apa-faces-outrage-child-deaths-mental-health-failure\/<\/a>; Mohr, W, \u201cAdverse Effects Associated With Physical Restraint,\u201d The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry\u2014Review Paper<\/em>, June 2003, https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/070674370304800509<\/a><\/p>\n [9] Deborah Yetter, “7-year-old died at Kentucky youth treatment center due to suffocation, autopsy finds; 2 workers fired,” USA Today, <\/em>19 Sept. 2022, https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/nation\/2022\/09\/19\/death-child-jaceon-terry-brooklawn-kentucky-youth-center\/10428004002\/<\/a>; Taylor Johnston, \u201c\u2018He didn\u2019t deserve that\u2019: Remembering young people who\u2019ve died from restraint and seclusion,\u201d CT Insider<\/em>, 31 Oct. 2022, https:\/\/www.ctinsider.com\/projects\/2022\/child-deaths-school-restraint-seclusion\/<\/a><\/p>\n
![https:\/\/www.Send2Press.com\/300dpi\/25-0527-s2p-cchr-mandated-300dpi.jpg<\/a><\/p>\nImage caption: \u201cInvoluntary medication, electroshock, even sterilization \u2014 these are inhuman practices. Under international law, they constitute torture. There is an urgent need to ban all coercive and non-consensual measures in psychiatric settings.\u201d \u2013 Amalia Gamio, Vice Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES, Calif., May 27, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog, is calling for an overhaul of psychiatric hospitalization and community treatment laws. With 54% of U.S. psychiatric patients held involuntarily, CCHR warns the system has normalized coercion. Most U.S. states authorize Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) laws that compel individuals in the community to receive psychiatric treatment – typically drug-based – under threat of court orders or rehospitalization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9788,"featured_media":126444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[608,12804,10,187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religion-news","category-ap","category-california-news","category-los-angeles-news","has-post-title","has-post-date","no-post-category","no-post-tag","no-post-comment","has-post-author"],"acf":[],"views":2134,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9788"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126451"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126455,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126451\/revisions\/126455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/www.Send2Press.com\/300dpi\/25-0527-s2p-cchr-mandated-300dpi.jpg\"){kind=link}