This thesis was a sociological, historically informed, study
of the interactions between three key variables over a two hundred
year period. These variables were the changing nature of asylum-
based care of the mentally ill, the epistemological and
professional dominance of the psychiatric profession, and changing
periods of mental health legislation. Specifically, the study
examined how historical and contemporary tensions between the
perspectives of psychiatry and law have been manifested in British
Columbia, and with what consequences.
Two qualitative methodological approaches were utilised. Data
was obtained principally by historical analysis, A secondary
component of the study was four exploratory-descriptive, in-depth
interviews with mental health consumer-activists. These interviews
were conducted to explore their beliefs regarding involuntary
detention and treatment.
The origins of the asylum were traced in the U.K., America,
and Canada. Changes in nineteenth and twentieth century strategies
concerning the management of the mentally disordered were examined
in terms of the dialectical interaction between the identified
variables. Using British Columbia as a case study, reasons for the
discontinuous decline of the asylum in the twentieth century were
analysed. In particular, the emergence and consequences of a
contemporary dichotomy in the mental health discourse, summarised
as "rights" vs "treatment", was examined.
Findings showed that mental health legislative reform is
initiated in order to facilitate major changes in the management of
the mentally disordered. Such changes were shown to have centred
around attempts to manage the enduring consequences of the asylum.
The influence of the psychiatric profession was shown to be
relative to the over-arching economic and social control objectives
of the State. The dichotomy of treatment vs rights was suggested
to be the latest manifestation of the historical tension between
psychiatry and law. The contention was made that the dichotomy is
essentially false. Implications for social work and social policy were discussed and suggestions for future research made. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/5900 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Libbiter, Andrew Paul |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 19168744 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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