The evidence of these trials is biased. Introduction Psychiatry is open to criticism because of its power of compulsory detention and treatment. This issue could be avoided by psychiatrists restricting themselves to voluntary treatment, and psychotherapists indeed routinely do practise on this basis. However, the social responsibility of caring for the mentally ill is an essential function of psychiatry and should not be neglected. The question is how well psychiatry fulfills its role.
Critical psychiatry suggests that psychiatric practice is often inadequate for a number of reasons.
This article will review this critique of psychiatry by examining its main constituents. Detaining the mentally ill creates the potential for abuse. Psychiatric services have to find a precarious balance beside abuse and neglect. Accordingly it can be difficult to sustain interpersonal relationships. One temptation is to retreat into objectification of those identified as mentally ill, insisting on the somatic nature of their illness.