If we are people in a society with an authoritarian structure, where our ability to participate and do the things we wish to do every day are conditional on the approval of government, then our way of relating with power structures is no longer one of “We are all in partnership together” but one of “behavioural correction.” In such a system the mask becomes a tool for enacting that behavioural correction.
The solution to distress that is caused by closed services, missed education, lost income, poverty, debt, or coercive public health interventions is not to be found in psychiatric services – and particularly not in psychiatric services whose treatment options have been restricted to pharmacology only approaches.
The lesson is that the questions, answers, and solutions are within the capacity of individuals in society to discern and implement. We do not need powerful institutions with legal rights over us to feed them to us, to legislate us, to coerce us.
