| Abstract: | Working Paper 43 of the Law Reform Commission of Canada addresses a number of issues that are of concern to psychologists. The paper describes in lay terms a variety of psychological and medical treatments and discusses the ethical and legal issues involved in each. It begins by setting out to answer the following questions: (1) Do present laws provide sufficient protection against involuntary or nonconsensual administration of behaviour alteration treatments? (2) Should criminal law protect psychological integrity in the same way it already protects physical integrity? (3) Should the law make legitimate the use of these techniques as punishment or as a method of social control? Without entirely answering these questions, it ends by making a series of recommendations. The most important of these recommendations are: (a) that the criminal law affirm the right of psychiatric patients not to be treated against their will except under certain specified circumstances, (b) that uniformity of practice over the provinces be established, and (c) that a code of ethics on the medical and psychological treatment of prisoners be established as an administrative directive covering consent to treatment and related issues. Although it is unlikely that many psychologists would disagree with the advocation of procedural uniformity, the undesirability of coercive treatment, or the importance of obtaining informed consent, psychologists are very unlikely to be happy with this paper. The authors of this paper do not have the foggiest understanding of behaviourism, and what they do know appears to have been learned from A Clockwork Orange. There are important terminological problems, logical and philosophical difficulties, and an avoidance of some of the more important and intractable ethical dilemmas that confront treatment efforts within both health and correctional institutions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
