Do people genuinely believe 'you should get her/him sectioned' as some sort of option?

[likelysuspect]

I see this sort of comment quite a lot on here and its cropped up in another thread.

'you should consider getting her sectioned'

And the OP is thanking the poster for the useful advice!!

The issue around sectioning has also come up a lot in the threads about the Southport killer and on threads about children with that sort of presentation

It astounds me that in this day and age people still think that you can 'get someone sectioned' as if you just phone someone and the black Maria comes and gets them.

But that’s part of the point of this thread? There’s a lot of ignorance and misinterpretation of what “sectioning” is, what it does and who needs that level of treatment. The term is thrown around flippantly and it (and other bad use of mh language) imo adds to the stigma of SMI.

I do wholeheartedly agree that getting someone help when they are unwell is the most important thing. But it’s as important for people to not throw around the “needs sectioning” term flippantly.

It’s actually difficult to section someone. quite rightly so too
I have some insight because I discussed this with a psychiatrist involved in the care of a family member.

I agree completely. Nearest relative should always be consulted during a MHA for their subjective opinion and history on their loved one’s condition. Sometimes it’s not taken for the weight it should have. Sometimes it’s more valuable than the patients own insight.

I guess I just come from the perspective of having a paranoid schizophrenic family member and trying to get them help over the years. There's just no doubt to anybody who knows him when he's in need of sectioning but I suppose some people do use it flippantly. And yes it was incredibly difficult for him to be sectioned the last time (very different to when he was originally diagnosed).

I can't say what he did to trigger the process as it could be a bit outing but without a certain encounter happening with a professional who finally saw the behaviour for themselves (and was scared for their own safety apparently) nothing still would've been done. He certainly got the ball rolling after that and he was sectioned within a couple days. But we knew it's what he needed months before.

This!! Being sectioned can make things even worse. My daughter has been sectioned twice over past couple of years..once as a child and once as an adult since turning 18. New habits and ways of harming are learnt from fellow patients, and if you think you get any therapy/ support whilst under a S2 you are wrong. Even with suicidal thoughts, she is much safer at home ( CMHT are beyond useless too!) with family and support than being anywhere near a MH hospital. If you think people go in to get better, you’re very wrong and really most people have no idea exceptionally poorly you have to be to be sectioned.

It is and it isn’t imo.

It’s very hard to get someone sectioned in their house. But in public it’s actually much easier. That’s how I ended up being sectioned. Driven from the house because my mother was driving me insane on the phone to 999 continuously and holding my house hostage. I left. I then became a missing person potentially ill, and by the time the police picked me up I had been flagged enough times they basically were like this must be escalating so let’s section for assessment.

Basically if ARs parents had been on the phone continuously to 999 saying he’s buying weapons, he’s getting worse, he’s saying he wants to kill people, he needs sectioning… and then he went off to that bus with a knife and told police he wanted to kill people then he would have been sectioned. 100%

That didn’t happen because the parents. ARs father in particular kept minimising his behaviour. So much so that a psychiatrist passed his case on because he was being aggressive and misogynistic towards her.

De no one read the second part of my post where I said “it’s not easy and takes two doctors”?

When I, or anyone else, says “I got someone sectioned” we don’t mean that we signed the order. We mean we got the outcome we hoped for, which was for someone to receive mental health care against their will, in a healthcare facility.

I get (in the sense of understand) that this is some sort of pet peeve for the OP but it’s fairly common parlance for having achieved something. “I got married” “I got my friends together” “I got Bryan to stop talking about bicycles.”

Occasion 1: I was 19 and my girlfriend tried to kill herself. I was “part of the process” (the phrasing OP prefers) by calling 999 and later showing the doctors the suicide note that convinced them to section her. (She was okay , not clear how serious the attempt was.)

Occasion 2: I was 46, three years ago. Tried desperately to get my friend sectioned because she was having psychotic delusions. Couldn’t convince doctors to hold her after I got her to the mental health hospital. Sectioning happened a week later when she attacked her partner and police were called to the scene. I was interviewed again by doctors and “part of the process” to “get her sectioned” (does phrasing really matter that much?) She killed herself a month later.

Occasion 3: Mid 20s. I was tangentially involved. I was not part of the process in any way but a group of my friends had to get another friend sectioned after she had a psychotic break and became a danger to herself and others. She lived but cut contact with the friend group.

I’m not claiming to be a doctor. I never said it was easy to get someone sectioned. But it is possible. And I think it’s not unreasonable to use the expression “I got someone sectioned” or “can you get X sectioned” when talking about this process. I desperately wanted those people to be sectioned, I initiated the process for them to be sectioned, I achieved the result I wanted which was for them to be sectioned. Is nitpicking the language used really important?

As I said before, it’s not easy, But it can be done. Whether or not it works is another issue.

The threshold for getting sectioned was much lower 30 years ago so it was more likely then that flagging up concerns would lead to someone being sectioned. That is less likely these days to have much influence because of lack of beds