Ms Jennifer Hough:

I will make a quick comment and then leave it to the professionals to say how it could be done in legislation. The issue of medication and tapering or coming off it challenges the biomedical notion of a person having a disorder in his or her brain and needing to take medication for life. All of a sudden saying one can taper off medication and will be okay with the right supports challenges psychiatry and everything in which it believes. In the UK, the British Psychological Society has developed a paper that recognises the right of people and gives guidance for professionals on how to do this.

It is very challenging because it challenges what psychiatry believes and the medical model that medication essentially corrects a brain disorder. I remember my sister and my family were told when she was 16 years of age that she had a chemical imbalance - that she needed to take medications and would be grand. However, we know now that this story about the chemical imbalance is not true. There is no science behind it. It is a false narrative that helps to explain, potentially, how medication might work because it is not known how it works.

Bipolar is just a construct that explains behaviours. It is not a scientific term that says this is what goes on in a person's brain because nobody knows that. Nobody ever tells the person. Nobody comes back to say that new research shows these medications do not work the way we thought they used to. Nobody comes back to the family and updates them on evolutions in research or science.

Some 20 years ago, we did not know that these medications did not work very well or were damaging. We know now. The research is very clear on antidepressants and antipsychotics but it never filters down to the person.

In my view, it is a scandal. I will leave it to the professionals to say how we can legislate for that.