Hacker News Reader

Comment by akomtu | Hacker News Reader

In the dzogchen buddhism, there is an excercise that amounts to a voluntary 2-month long solitary confinement in a small room with no light and sounds. The perception of time melts down, hallucinacions occurs, but the trainee is prepared to deal with it, and at the end reaches a clarity of mind that he couldn't have obtained otherwise.

On a related note, the hells (if you believe in such things) are built around the same idea: reduction of freedom. At first the space dimensions are being lost one after another, and the hard offenders appear completely immobilized, but in return they gain an unusual clarity of mind to think about their deeds. If that's not enough, the time dimensions go away: first they turn into small loops of endless repetitions, and then disappear entirely. This final state is known as the Pit.

View on HN

Just being voluntary on its own makes a huge difference, as well as having some control over your environment, and the knowledge you CAN leave if you really want to.

It's the same with noise and lots of other things: if you know you can turn it off it's a lot less annoying than when you have no power over it.

> at the end reaches a clarity of mind that he couldn't have obtained otherwise.

Have you done this? I don't want to knock it out of hand, but I'm a little skeptical of this.

The word 'voluntary' sort of negates the rest of the comment. You can't compare voluntary solitary confinement with involuntary solitary confinement.

Dark retreats are also dark, not loud and bright like solitary is.

I don't think parent was trying to downplay solitary confinement, was just providing an analogous phenomenon

It isn't analogous.

British Mental health hospitals can be like that. Locked up without any jury trial which can be 24/7 solitary with hourly suicide watch checks to keep you awake and sleep deprived, drugs forcible introduced into your system that fuck your mind and health up.

If you dont becomes the NHS's compliant puppet physically and mentally aka their idea of a typical model citizen, you never get let out.

Its beyond inhumane and healthy, but humans have had thousands of years domesticating different animals, breeding traits in and out, which can be and have been applied to humans.

The state, ie police and NHS can totally bypass the legal system and incarcerate people, in effect dissappearing them, unless the legal system allows this?!?

The legal instrument that is necessary to protect against this situation is a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA). This permits a specific other person to make decisions if the subject is deemed to lack mental capacity (that is, diagnosed as insane). Without a pre-existing Lasting Power of Attorney, the NHS may be delegated responsibility for the subject's health - which could include the mandatory drugs that you mention.

It really is rather extraordinary that this is the case, but one's next of kin do not have any power or influence unless a LPA has been signed.

Edit for exact (albeit heavily abridged) quote from the relevant Mental Capacity Act 2005:

  (9)(1) A lasting power of attorney is a power of attorney under which the donor (“P”) confers on the donee (or donees) authority to make decisions about all or any of the following—
    (a) P’s personal welfare or specified matters concerning P’s personal welfare
    ...
  and which includes authority to make such decisions in circumstances where P no longer has capacity. 
  ...
  (9)(7)Where a lasting power of attorney authorises the donee (or, if more than one, any of them) to make decisions about P’s personal welfare, the authority—
     ...
     (c) extends to giving or refusing consent to the carrying out or continuation of a treatment by a person providing health care for P.

Unfortunately, according to Mind:

"But your health and welfare attorney won't be able to refuse treatment for you if: You’re sectioned under the Mental Health Act in the future, and your treatment is prescribed by the responsible clinician or approved clinician in charge of your treatment at that time. Your attorney will have no legal power to refuse the treatment. This is except for ECT, which they can refuse even in these circumstances. ..."

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/legal-rights/men...

Thanks, this appears to be useful for end of life as well.

Problem is GP's really dont like being challenged in my experience, and its a case of having to write papers to challenge their theories with more recent (< 30yrs) scientific discoveries and studies. In other words, I'd have to throw more recent expert stuff back at them, which is an exercise I dont have time for, but when banged up the movements are seriously curtailed, and access to the internet is seriously restricted to non existent, making it impossible to fight back once inside. Its a Kobayashi Maru in Star Trek terms!

Their medicines are shrouded in secrecy in the main, which also makes their judgements harder to fight.

When inside you dont even get a patient information leaflet for the meds they "prescribe", its effing dictatorial, Josef Mengele would be proud of the british state today!

Dont get me started on the patronisation by staff either!

Leaving aside the bizarre comments about breeding animals and humans, it's certainly the case that mental health hospitals are prone to abuses. Sadly, there will likely always be a need for them. Like prisons, some people are just unable to live with others safely. Sometimes they can be helped, but many cannot and will have to spend their entire lives without freedom. Until we discover a means to help them I can accept that.

What I can't accept is the way those people are often treated. Being confined is terrible, but they should still be well treated/looked after and, as much as possible, allowed to pursue their own interests and lead meaningful productive lives.

Ultimately I think that it'd take oversight and transparency to prevent people being "disappeared" without cause or necessity. I'd hope that a hospital would need to make their case to a judge and/or an independent body of professionals to justify keeping someone locked up against their will for longer than a couple days (as an assessment/suicide watch period) which can be challenged and reviewed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com