Anorexia and involuntary commitment: A necessary approach?

Psychiatry, Psychology and Law

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 86-96

  Richmond, Jayde ^a  

^a Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman ^*  (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ANOREXIA NERVOSA; COMPETENCE; DETENTION; HOSPITALIZATION; HUMAN; HUMAN RIGHTS; INVOLUNTARY COMMITMENT; LAW; MEDICAL DECISION MAKING; PATIENT RIGHT; PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENT; REVIEW;

EID: 0035717012     PISSN: 13218719     EISSN: 19341687     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13218710109525007     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. Dr Janice Russell, Director, Sydney Northside Clinic Eating Disorders Unit cited in New South Wales Ministerial Summit on Body Image and Eating Disorders August 19th, 1996
2. Gerald C Davison ‖ John M Neale Abnormal Psycholog 8th ed. John Wiley ‖ Sons, inc, USA, 2001 p. 219,224
3. Illness and the Improvement of Mental Health Care (1991) United Nations state that 9(1)
4. “every person shall have the right to be treated in the least restrictive environment and with the least restrictive or intrusive treatment appropriate to the patient’s health” and 15(1) that every effort should be made to avoid involuntary admission.
5. I Freckelton, “DecisionMaking About Involuntary Psychiatric Treatment: An Analysis of the Principles Behind Victorian Practice” (1998) 5 Psychiatry, Psycholog and Law 249, at 253.
6. American Psychiatric Association (2000) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Fourth ed text revised(DSM-IVTR) Washington, DC.
7. Appeal of SF (1989) MHRBD 137 (Vic) applying the test In The Review of AB (1988) 1 MHRBD (Vic) 40.
8. Mental Health (Amendment) Act 1995 (Vic)
9. In the Review of EF (1996) 2 MHRBD (Vic) 346 at 349.
10. JAH v Medical Superintendent of Rozelle Hospitalm unreported, New South Wales Supreme Court, per Powell J,. 4 March 1986.
11. Mericourt A., ‖ H Barry, “Capacity, Coercion and Kilos: Anorexia nervosa and guardianship in NSW” in E J Brown, ed., Current Dilemmas ‖ Possibilities in Treating Dieting Disorders (1996) Proceedings of a 2 day Conference in Bendigo, 13th ‖ 14th July 1996, 72. pp. 72–82
12. I Freckelton, op dr., p. 252
13. T Szasz, “Second Commentary on ‘Aristotle’s Function Argument’” (2000) 7/1 Philosophy, Psychiatry ‖ Psycholog 3 p. 11.
14. In the appeal of SF (1989) at 142.
15. (1993) 2 MHRBD (Vic) 52
16. L Surpell et al., “Anorexia Nervosa: Friend or Foe?” (1999) 25/2 International Journal of Eating Disorders 177, p. 174–188
17. P Lewis, “Feeding Anorexic Patients Who Refuse Food” (1999) 7 Medical Law Review 21, p. 23.
18. Appeal of SF (1989) at 144. Some determinations before the Boatd indicate that patients with anorexia are usually held to be incapable of consenting in that they lack insight into both their illness and the need for and efficacy of treatment, Freckelton p 258.
19. Review of AB (1988) 1 MHRBD (Vic) 40 at 57; Rogers v Whitaker (1992) 175 CLR479.
20. L Carter, “Refusal to Consent to Treatment by Involuntary Patients under the Mental Health Act 1986 (Victoria)” in Human Rights, The Law and Psychiatry Proceedings of a one day seminar March 25th 1994, National Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, LaTrobe Univeristy, p. 54.
21. M A Jones ‖C K Keywood, “Assessing The Patient’s Competence to Consent to Medical Treatment” (1996) 2 Medical Law International 107 atl21
22. P Herbert ‖ M A Weingarten, “The Ethics of Force Feeding in Anorexia Nervosa” (1991) 144/2 Canadian Medical Association Journal 141
23. Bruch in R Dresser, “Feeding the Hunger Artists: Legal Issues in Treating Anorexia Nervosa” [1984] Wisconsin Law Review 297 p. 307
24. World Health Organisation Collaboratory Centre for Mental Health ‖ Substance Abuse, Management of Mental Disorders v.2 (1997), p. 2099.
25. Re CMC [1995] NZFLR 341; J Oliver, “Anorexia and the Refusal of Medical Treatment” (1997) 27 Victoria University of Wellington Law Review 621, p. 630.
26. J Oliver, “Anorexia and the Refusal of Medical Treatment”(1997) 27 Victoria University of Wellington Law Review 621, p. 625
27. Guardianship Act 1987 (NSW). Rosenman argues that mental health law should not exist, that rather-we should utilise guardianship legislation that is non-discriminatory. He suggests that mental health laws roll together and combine treatment, care, deprivation of liberty and punishment, p. 562.
28. S Rosenman, “Mental Health law: an idea whose time has passed” (1994) 28 Australian ‖ New ZealandJournal of Psychiatry 560 Mericourt, p. 73
29. CMC [1995] NZFLR 341 the court established a legislative basis for overriding the Bill of rights that had provided everyone with the right to refuse treatment, J Oliver.
30. Rogers v Whitaker (1992) 175 CLR 479. Further, under the Medical Treatment Act 1988 (Vic) a patient may refuse treatment if the decision is voluntary and without inducement and compulsion; and they have informed consent; and are of sound mind and 18 years of age Carter, p. 57.
31. The 1996 amendments have been criticised as violating United Nations principles, in that those principles maintain that a person should have the right to refuse or consent to treatment based on determinations of capacity by independent authorities. The Victorian Act’s global incompetence approach violates the human rights of people with mental illness, Carter, p. 62.
32. B v Croydon Health Authority [1994] 1 All ER 683
33. Disorder under s63 of Act. Treatment included those acts ancillary to core treatments, treatments of symptoms and of underlying causes. Force feeding was seen as complementing psychotherapy for anorexia; see also Airedale NHS Trust v Bland [1993] AC 789; Riverside Mental Health Trust v Fox [1994] 307 Minn 250 (1976)
34. ReT [1992] 3 WLR 782 the court conceded that a Jehovah’s Witness patient njay refuse life saving blood transfusions even if it would lead to death.
35. P Herbert ‖ M A Weingarten, “The Ethics of Force Feeding in Anorexia Nervosa” (1991) 144/2 Canadian Medical Association Journal 141.
36. Re CMC [1995] NZFLR 341 MacCormick J at 346.
37. J J Brumberg, Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1989) p. 270
38. J Astbury, Crazy For You: The Making of Women’s Madness (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1996) p. 191–6
39. J Astbury, Crazy For You: The Making of Women s Madness (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1996) p. 191–6
40. M MacSween, Anorexic Bodies: A Feminist and Sociological Perspective on Anorexia Nervosa (London: Routledge, 1995) p. 13
41. Brumberg, A,“adding flesh to the emaciated frame of the food refuser was the nineteenth century physicians primary responsibility… medical success was measured in weight gain.”
42. M Lawrence ‖ M Dana, Fighting Food: Coping With Eating Disorders (London: Penguin Books, 1990) p73;
43. S Orbach, Hunger Strike: The Anorectic’s Struggle as a Metaphor for Our Age (London: Faber ‖ Faber, 1986) p. 63.
44. M Robertson, Starving in the Silences: An Exploration of Anorexia Nervosa (Sydney: Allen Sc Unwin, 1992), p xiii
45. M Boskind-Lodahl, “Cinderella’s Stepsisters: A Feminist Perspective on Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia” (1976) 2 Signs 342–356, p. 352
46. S Bordo, “Reading the Slender Body” in M Jacobus, E Keller Sc S Shuttleworth, eds., Body/Politics: Women and the Discourses of Science (New York: Routledge, 1990) p. 105
47. N Wolf, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women (USA: Chatto Sc Windus, 1991) p. 198.
48. Astbury uses the case of Freud’s Dora to illustrate the spectre of psychogenic science and therapy “when the terms of getting better are liable to make the patient ill; when acts of self validation are perceived as acts of revenge and where yielding to the analyst’s view is mandatory” pp. 109–132
49. In B v Croydon Health Authority (1994) the trial judge noted the doctor’s opinion that overriding the patients refusal renders the prognosis for psychotherapeutic treatment even poorer, at 19.
50. C Laird Birmingham et al., “Anorexia Nervosa: Refeeding Syndrome and Hypophosphatemia” (1996) 20/2 International Journal of Eating Disorders 211 highlights studies showing significant morbidity in anorexia. Hypophosphatemia leading to cardiac complications can arise during enteral feeding; also tachycardia and heart failure: it is a “frequent complication of refeeding in severely malnourished patients, p 212.
51. P Lewis, “Feeding Anorexic Patients ’Who Refuse Food” (1999) 7 Medical Law Review 21, p. 33
52. Patients perceive tube feeding as punitive and will lose trust in therapist, jeoperdising long term recovery, in Dresser, p. 309.
53. F E Larocca ‖ S A Goodner, “Tube Feeding: Is It Ever Necessary?” (1986) 31 New Directions for Mental Health Services 87, p. 58.
54. Bridgeman argues that “forcing treatment upon a young sufferer of anorexia merely reinforces her lack of self confidence by taking this decision out of her control, and denies her the capacity for self directed action which must be developed if she is ever to recover from this illness” J Bridgeman, “Old Enough to Know Best?” (1993) 13 Legal Studies 69, p. 79.
55. Autonomy is a fundamental value in society: “our society recognises the general notion that all people are autonomous beings who have a right to and indeed should make their own decisions” Victorian Law Reform Commission, Informed Consent to Medical Treatment, Discussion Paper No 7 (Melb 1987)
56. Obligations under: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights; The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (particularly relevant are articles 23, 24); Declaration of the Rights of the Child