Physical Restraints in Psychiatric Hospitals

The societal image of mental illness is of violent, irrational beings, potential criminals, and people who need attention. As you can see from the previous words, we tend to stigmatize people with mental illness as people who need to be separated from the general social community. According to the Act on the Promotion of Mental Health and Support for Welfare Services for the Mentally Ill, a mentally ill person is a person who has significant limitations in leading an independent daily life due to delusions, hallucinations, disturbances in thinking or mood, etc. However, the existence of such limitations is not a reason for a person to be excluded from the rights that are universally enjoyed by all human beings. Psychiatric hospitals are closed spaces, even for those who choose to be admitted voluntarily, let alone involuntarily. In addition, the symptoms of mental illness can vary from patient to patient and can be highly variable. In these situations, medical staff can get caught up in the need to stabilize patients first and foremost and impose physical restraints without reflecting on familiar management practices. This is due in part to the fact that the criteria for physical compulsion are merely guidelines, which means that the strength of the normative force perceived by the offender is low, and the requirements for physical compulsion are not clear and specific, leaving much room for discretionary judgment by mental health practitioners. In order to ensure that physical restraints on mentally ill people are consistent with their human rights and access to mental health services, it will be necessary to strengthen the normative power of relevant laws and regulations, and to overhaul the system to ensure that the unilateral judgment of psychiatrists as to the need for physical restraints is based on consensus among various internal and external actors.