Beyond Coercion: Reimagining Legal Responses to Psychosis
- 1:30-2:30 Everyday Coercion: Interrogating the Economic, Social, and Procedural Costs of Assisted Outpatient Treatment - Nev Jones PhD, Todd Wittenberg, Melissa Uehling MD PhD, Lauren Fowler, Shannon Pagdon MSW
- 2:30-3pm INSTEAD Mental Health Diversion: An Off-ramp to Care and Support for Individuals Arrested While in "Psychosis" or Extreme States - Allie Dougharty, LCSW
Everyday Coercion: Interrogating the Economic, Social, and Procedural Costs of Assisted Outpatient Treatment - Nev Jones PhD, Todd Wittenberg, Melissa Uehling MD PhD, Lauren Fowler, Shannon Pagdon MSW
This panel brings together findings from rigorous, co-produced qualitative research examining the impacts of Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) and psychiatric coercion across multiple domains. Panelists will drawing on interviews with AOT clients in New York (n = 47), outside of NY (n = 20) and community psychiatrists across the United States (n = 35). The first speaker will interrogate failures of judicial due process within AOT proceedings in New York, examining how procedural protections break down in practice and what this means for the rights of people subject to commitment orders. The second panelist will then explain how court-ordered community treatment can disrupt economic participation, including employment, education, and financial stability. The third panelist will consider AOT's disruption of social relationships and everyday social processes, unpacking relational costs of AOT that are rarely captured through quantitative metrics. Finally, the last panelist will present an analysis of psychiatrists' own accounts—both those critiquing and those rationalizing the profession's role in AOT specifically and coercion more broadly—with attention to the complexity and stakes of the moral, epistemic, and institutional tensions providers regularly navigate.
INSTEAD Mental Health Diversion: An Off-ramp to Care and Support for Individuals Arrested While in "Psychosis" or Extreme States - Allie Dougharty, LCSW
INSTEAD Mental Health Diversion offers holistic, non-punitive, in-community case management and legal system navigation for individuals experiencing psychosis and other mental health crises at their time of their arrest in New Orleans, Louisiana. The INSTEAD program helps facilitate participants' release from jail, re-entry into the community, and collaborates with legal system actors to have their legal cases dismissed after three months of participation. While program participants are required to engage in some form of mental health treatment and/or assessment, they are not mandated to attend inpatient treatment or take medication. This presentation will explain the ethical and clinical foundations of the program, highlight the difference between our diversion model and other available diversion options in Orleans Parish, share qualitative data about participant experiences, and highlight the issues inherent in operating a progressive, person-centered program in a conservative legal system.
