Advocates and professionals who support the expansion of involuntary interventions often make the case that there is simply "no alternative" to coercion for individuals who, it is claimed, "lack insight into their illness," "are enslaved to addictions" and/or do not have the capacity to make decisions for themselves. Groups challenging coercion are often accused of "allowing individuals with serious conditions to rot with their rights on."
This false narrative belies the reality of the overwhelming majority of individuals and groups advocating for alternatives to coercion: alternatives which are emphatically grounded in recognition of the need for robust systems of care and substantive societal efforts to address social and structural drivers of distress and disability.
Coercive psychiatric interventions persist not because they are effective in promoting recovery and community integration, but because they are structurally and institutionally easier to implement. It is always easier to compel the behavior we want through blunt force than it is to build relationships premised on trust and understanding. And it is in fact far easier to shut individuals away in hospitals, residential treatment facilities or IMDs than it is to address the biggest barriers to integration - discrimination and exclusionary policies in areas such as education, employment and civic life. Difficult, but if we are ever to truly change outcomes, essential.