About the Event
In April 2023, IDHA convened the sixth installment of our ongoing Decarcerating Care series, Histories of Coercion and Dreams for Liberated Futures. This panel explored how institutionalization has long operated as a tool of social control, disproportionately impacting Black and Brown communities, manifesting today in the expansion of involuntary commitment directives nationally.
In a follow-up community event on Thursday, December 7, Decarcerating Care panelists Kelechi Ubozoh and Rob Wipond will delve deeper into how we define and understand “political” uses of psychiatric detention and commitment powers in a contemporary North American context. Speaking from lived experience, Kelechi will share personal perspectives on psychiatric force. Grounded in ongoing journalistic work at the interfaces between psychiatry, civil rights, and community issues, Rob will frame various ways of understanding “political” uses of force, historically and in the present day.
The presenters will discuss both self-evident and more “gray-area” examples of politicized uses of psychiatric powers, culminating in a discussion of current changes to mental health laws in California. The event will conclude with a group discussion about different ways to understand political uses of psychiatric powers, with the goal of developing shared strategies to better convey this idea to the general public when most mainstream messaging tends to present these powers as individually-targeted, non-political, and healing.
This event is open to a multi-stakeholder audience, including people with lived experience, mental health providers of all kinds, activists, writers, artists, researchers, and other advocates.
Register in advance via Eventbrite to join. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about how to join.
Donations
IDHA is a small organization that strives to meet the accessibility needs of our community to the best of our ability. Our events are by tiered suggested donation to ensure we can provide closed captions on our events and other programs, though we strive to never turn anyone away. We appreciate donations of any size for those who have capacity to give.
Access
ASL interpretation + automated closed captioning will be provided. The event will be recorded and shared with all registrants. Please submit any additional access needs to contact@idha-nyc.org.
Facilitators
Kelechi Ubozoh
Kelechi Ubozoh is a Nigerian-American writer and mental health consultant with over a decade of experience working in the California mental health system in the areas of research and advocacy, community engagement, suicide prevention, and peer support. Her story of surviving a suicide attempt is featured in The S Word documentary, O, The Oprah Magazine and CBS This Morning with Gayle King. She has spent the last two years facilitating healing-centered spaces for BIPOC employees. Her book with LD Green, We’ve Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health, elevates marginalized voices of lived experience who have endured psychiatric mistreatment is featured in the curriculum at Boston University. More at kelechiubozoh.com.
Rob Wipond
Rob Wipond is an investigative journalist who writes frequently at the interfaces between psychiatry, civil rights, community issues, policing, surveillance and privacy, and social change. He’s the author of the book Your Consent is Not Required: The Rise in Psychiatric Detentions, Forced Treatment, and Abusive Guardianships (BenBella, 2023).