The states which are described by mental illness come with prognosis, i.e. a fortelling of lower outcomes based on various measures and the coherent different levels of detriment to outcome based on the diagnosis. Schizophrenia has a predictable outcome worse than bipolar in many of these measures which are usually well validated.
Schizoaffective disorder is a controversial diagnosis (and different from cycloid psychosis which seems to have more acceptance in those who have heard of it but it not the equivalent of schizoaffective, bipolar type) but proven to be a valid diagnosis is research literature because of the different prognosis to schizophrenia and biploar (sitting somewhere inbetween for many and closer to bipolar for others if I remember the paper correctly).
These measured outcomes are a salient argument for the treatment of mental illnesses. Treatment means people have better, longer lives. They may not necessarily be fulfilling nor as good as life pre-treatment because these measure systems don't completely comprehend the true measures of life. The research as always shows the average picture and usually shows signficance using 95% confidence levels, so 5% outliers can have significantly better or worse outcomes (I make this point because I consider myself diagnoseable based on the research criteria and the operational critera (DSM and ICD is what I mean) but my level of function is relatively high and my ability to cope, while variable, is also high therefore I consider myself in the 2.5% possible positive outcome).
The experiences that end in crisis can be catastrophic to some individuals and it is better to prevent those catastrophies happening. Suicide is the worst outcome of crisis and that should be prevented at all costs. Other impacts like social exclusion through crisis, financial ruin, relationship breakdowns, family breakdown and exclusion, impact on physical health and a number of other serious negative events can also be prevented by disregard for the right to be mentally ill.
Mental illness also comes with a curse that decisions can be considered irrational and rational decisions might be tainted and dismissed by others because of the the stigma of madness or incomprehensible logic on previous occassions. The prevention of these mad moments means the individual can have a better reputation and social standing, something that many people value and some people who don't could get a diagnosis for not valuing (in the extreme).
Are people also capable of handling their mental illnesses yet? People who successfully self-managing without medication are an exception to the rule. Most people survive and are thankful to a mental health system that is compassionate to the extremes of human behaviour, that treats the outcasts and the despised and attempts to return them to society, that provides a safe place when they are in severe crisis and offers professional support to help them work better.
Many people are glad that they can be treated and their experiences reduced, their emotions dulled, their anger taken away and their sleep made easy. Many people want to be normal and not weird and those that don't have been proven by research to be more likely to be criminals or murders. Even those may be treated and they should be treated and changed so they don't murder.
A future possiblity for mental health is the treatment of criminals to change their thinking patterns and behaviour so that they don't reoffend. Its a chance for those people to return to a civilised way of function and its better that than a life of crime. The tools of brainwashing have already been used for good to treat depression, anxiety and psychosis. Why not crime? And why not the punishment for crime not be incarceration alone but enforced psychiatric behavioural modification. Its in the criminals best interests and its good for society too.
Is it possible to apply that argument to current psychiatric diagnoses. People do not always know whats best for them, i.e. people can lack capacity and when that happens other people can make decisions for them based on their personal idea of their best interests. They may lack the insight to understand that they are mad. That's part of the illness. How can a person have that right?
Mental illnesses are not the same as the rights of people with physical illness for that reason. A blind person has the right not to have their sight restored if the technology comes about that allows that. A person dying of cancer is soon likely to have the right to take their own life and this is possible now in the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. A chronically depressed person doesn't have the right to kill themself, even if it is a rational decision based upon the enduring and treatment resistant experience of life, because that is part of the illness (perhaps until the test case, and perhaps not even then).
Suicide itself is part of the diagnositic criteria of depression and depression is the medicalisation of misery. Its fundamentally compassionate to take away the rational choice of an individual's experience of consciousness and of life in their best interests because the illness means they don't think normally and they can't know what's in their own best interests because they are ill.
Native American mumbo jumbo doesn't get around that.
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