What is it about?
This article is about supported decision making, an idea captured in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Just as people who use wheelchairs are entitled to ramps to access public buildings, so according to the Convention are people who may need decision making support entitled to accessible information and processes so they may direct their own life. This article discusses what supported decision making means in mental health crises and for people with ongoing psychosocial disablement.
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Why is it important?
The Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities is the first human rights treaty of the 21st century. It invites a new way of responding to mental distress, disorder and disablement.
Perspectives
I wrote this to better understand myself what supported decision making might mean for the mental health context. A prominent psychiatrist told me he knew what it would mean for a person with an intellectual disability, but did not know why it was needed as a legal/policy concept in mental health services. This article was my attempt at a detailed response. Some points are slightly dated, and have been resolved in subsequent debates, but much of the paper still stands.
Dr Piers M Gooding
University of Melbourne
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Supported Decision-Making: A Rights-Based Disability Concept and its Implications for Mental Health Law, Psychiatry Psychology and Law, June 2013, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/13218719.2012.711683.
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Contributors
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