…and not get treated with medication? In other words, they diagnose a mental condition, keep you there, but do not treat it with drugs.
Is there any place on the planet where this could be the case?
Interesting question. I was under the impression (largely from pop-culture) that every patient in a mental hospital is given “dum down” drugs, ostensibly for a legitimate psychiatric condition, but according to some, to dull the patients down to the point where they don’t have the will or the strength to resist.
One question to investigate is whether or not there are any psychiatric conditions that would warrant psychiatric inpatient admission in and of themselves AND for which psychiatric drugs are contraindicated?
Addiction therapy, i.e., rehab, would not necessarily involve the use of pharmaceuticals. There may be a separate mental condition present, such as anxiety or depression, though, which could be treated with drugs.
Perhaps a private psychiatric may offer alternate treatments.
I imagine an admission to the psychiatric hospital would be like any other hospital. If you walked into an ER with symptoms of a heart attack and refused medication, they’d release you against medical advice or simply stall you long enough till you black out and then treat you with drugs anyway
There are some psychiatric issues that wouldn’t necessarily be treated with drugs, such as eating disorders. There are also psychiatric treatments that don’t necessarily require drugs – such as ECT.
But the major types of psychiatric disorders, such as bipolar, schizophrenia, depression, OCD, are all treated with drugs.
It’s certainly legal, not considered unethical, and has historically happened well on into the psych-pharmaceutical era. But you are right in assuming that the generic default approach to treating anyone who is an inpatient in a psychiatric facility is to drug them with psych drugs.
Here in New York, thanks to the Rivers decision, involuntarily committed psych patients retain the right to refuse medication unless also / separately judged incompetent or wherein an “emergency” situation exists where the patient is immediately dangerous to self or others and medication is considered appropriate to remedy that dangerousness.
In practice, Rivers hearings have often been rather pro forma, with the hearings going before judges who are inclined to think that psych meds are automatically always good for mental patients, that mental patients automatically don’t know what is best for them and psychiatrists automatically do (effectively undoing the Rivers decision’s findings).
Voluntary patients have always been considered to possess the right to refuse meds, just as they are considered to retain the right to opt back out of treatment altogether, but again actual practice tends to diverge from this (if you’re in a locked environment and your decision to leave or refuse recommended treatment is subject to review and revocation by the ward psychiatrist, you may discover that you are only “voluntary” until your choices conflict with what the psychiatrist would have ordered for you).
W/O emergency, at ICU, or on floor danger-to-self or -others, they use restraints before administering any drugs. Self admitting patients have to sign a ton of releases. One point (hands, feet) two point (chest), three point (and head). Must have nurse in room 24/7, loosen bands every 5 minutes.
This is NYS law. As mentioned, patients can refuse any drug, until a judge reviews the case w/i three days. Judges usually win.
About ECT (electro convulsive therapy) I am sure it is against every mental health law known to man in the US that it can never be applied w/o consent.
The amount of paperwork to sign before electing ECT is humongous. I speak from experience, BTW.
Completely anecdotal, but it’s my understanding that many mental patients are hospitalized during a complete dissociative crisis. Once the person is stabilized by medication, they must be ASKED if they want the meds, and since they feel “normal,” they refuse.
Or, they are discharged with a prescription, and never take the drug. Eventually, they break with reality and are considered a danger to themselves, and it starts all over again.
~VOW
Good point, and well said.
In my experience, the people who say “there’s nothing really wrong w/ me, I’ll be out of here in a day or two,” are the ones who should pack for a longish stay…
Forgot to add:
A patient’s request to leave treatment/ward can also be brought before a judge w/i three days.
Inpatient Mental Health worker checking in here - in my state if a patient requests discharge, they are evaluated, not by the unit medical staff, but by a designated mental health provider (DMHP). We have had MANY clients who have discharged this way, and often against the advice of the physician. If the DMHP doesn’t find the client detainable, (in other words, not an immediate danger to themselves or others) then out the door they go.
DMHP’s are also the people who go out into the community to see if someone needs hospitalization, either at emergency rooms, jails, or even private homes. Very dangerous work. One of our DMHP’s was killed by a person who didn’t want to be detained.
My husband in a nurse at a mental hospital and this is quoted for truth. He refers to them as his “frequent flyers”.
Wow. Unrecognized wonderful work you do.
ECT is inconceivable without drugs (primarily muscle relaxants–hence no parody like Jack Nicholson buckling).
Plus therapy, daily at a good hospital.
Plus in ECT you’re knocked out under full anesthesia. Forgot to add again. 
At some hospitals in the past, some patients were not put to sleep. That was long ago. Jack Nicholson experiences with ECT were no parody – just good acting.
The patient is put to sleep mainly so that they won’t experience the trauma of having a convulsion and being awake at the same time.
Important: According to the experts that I know, ECT is no where near as traumatic as the ECT for forty or fifty years ago. I’m not sure when it changed or how it affects the memory now. But I would think that something to put you to sleep would be expected.
Agreed. My uncle was put into insulin shock, which in addition to the horrible procedure had a very narrow window between convulsions and death.
IAMNAD, but knowledge of drug indications and contraindications is part of the reason doctors get the big bucks. 
They analyze the shit out of these questions, both for an emergency intake stabilization, a short-term stay, and a long-term maintenance regimen, each of which requires a different cocktail.
A doctor on this thread could give you a case or two, I’m sure.