Gender, madness, and the legacies of the prisons information group (Gip)

Mechanical restraints are most often used in circumstances where behaviours are believed to be a threat to the welfare and safety of others or the individual him or herself. However, the degree to which health care professionals justify the uses of mechanical restraints in relation to the perceived beneficial effects expressed by those who must experience them may very well prove to be quite different. The overarching purpose of this chapter is to shed light on the lived experience of mechanically restrained patients hospitalized in psychiatric settings (acute psychiatric care unit and psychiatric emergency unit) in order to explore gendered power relations in psychiatric care. While this chapter focuses specifically on the experience of women who have been restrained, it would seem that mechanical restraints operate in a system where authority is embedded in psychiatric practices and likely to affect all who are in contact with this setting.