Psychiatry needs to change. I have read multiple books by Dr. Thomas Szasz. I agree with him that civil commitment and the insanity defense should be abolished. Do you oppose or do you know of any counselors/psychologists who are fervently opposed to civil commitment? How do you or they deal with the politics surrounding the dominant ethical paradigm to report those who cannot be persuaded to not end their human life on Earth to organizations that will lock them up?
It is rational to non-forcefully try and persuade an individual interesting in ending their life on Earth them to keep on living and create a life worth living for their own self. If one believes in honesty, peace, freedom and autonomy, then it is not rational to try and forcefully stop someone from ending their own life. To live or not live is a moral and philosophical question, not a medical one. To forcefully stop someone from ending their own life here on Earth is rational from a tyrannical, arrogant, sanctimonious position. Dr. Thomas Szasz wrote a book about why supposed libertarians should support abolishing the insanity defense and civil commitment, I think, "Faith in Freedom: Libertarian Principles and Psychiatric Practices".
In the case of psychiatrists, society assigns them the duty to lock so called patients up until they agree to take supposed medicine. Thomas Szasz passed away in 2012 at the age of 92. If my memory serves me, when talking about the insanity defense, which he felt should be abolished, he notes that for someone to claim to be an expert in mental illness is analogous to being an expert in unicorns or ghosts, in the sense that neither actually really exist. He notes that the mind cannot literally be ill or sick, and that it can be no more sick than a joke can be literally sick. Therefore, mental illness is just an non-useful metaphor and does not literally exist.
