The Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: More Than Just Another Reform of Psychiatry.

The social model of disability-which is grounded in the lived realities of disabled people, as well as their activism, research, and theoretical work-has enabled a historic turn in the understanding of disability. This model also facilitates the transition to the rights-based approach that is at the core of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). However, the social model of disability does not straightforwardly translate to the lives of people who end up being detained and forcibly treated in psychiatric facilities. This paper examines the implications of the lack of an equivalent theoretical framework to counteract the hegemony of the biomedical model of "mental illness" and to underpin and guide the implementation of the CRPD for people with psychiatric diagnoses. Critically engaging with some recent attempts to make the CRPD provisions integral to psychiatry, we expose fundamental contradictions inherent in such projects. Our discussion seeks to extend the task of implementation of the CRPD beyond reforming psychiatry, suggesting a much broader agenda for change. We argue for the indispensability of first-person knowledge in developing and owning this agenda and point to the dangers of merely remaking former treatment objects into objects of human rights.

How service users and carers understand, perceive, rephrase, and communicate about "depressive episode" and "schizophrenia" diagnoses: an international participatory research.

BACKGROUND: For ICD-11, the WHO emphasized the clinical utility of communication and the need to involve service users and carers in the revision process. AIMS: The objective was to assess whether medical vocabulary was accessible, which kinds of feelings it activated, whether and how users and carers would like to rephrase terms, and whether they used diagnosis to talk about mental health experiences. METHOD: An innovative protocol focused on two diagnoses (depressive episode and schizophrenia) was implemented in 15 different countries. The same issues were discussed with users and carers: understanding, feelings, rephrasing, and communication. RESULTS: Most participants reported understanding the diagnoses, but associated them with negative feelings. While the negativity of "depressive episode" mostly came from the concept itself, that of "schizophrenia" was largely based on its social impact and stigmatization associated with "mental illness". When rephrasing "depressive episode", a majority kept the root "depress*", and suppressed the temporal dimension or renamed it. Almost no one suggested a reformulation based on "schizophrenia". Finally, when communicating, no one used the phrase "depressive episode". Some participants used words based on "depress", but no one mentioned "episode". Very few used "schizophrenia". CONCLUSION: Data revealed a gap between concepts and emotional and cognitive experiences. Both professional and experiential language and knowledge have to be considered as complementary. Consequently, the ICD should be co-constructed by professionals, service users, and carers. It should take the emotional component of language, and the diversity of linguistic and cultural contexts, into account.