Episode Details
Back to EpisodesYour Consent is Not Required with Rob Wipond | The Gaslit Truth Podcast with Dr Teralyn Sell and Therapist Jenn Schmitz
Description
The Gaslit Truth Podcast is hosted by Dr. Teralyn Sell and Therapist Jenn Schmitz, exploring mental health, psychiatric medication withdrawal, therapy culture, and informed consent.
In this episode, Dr. Teralyn Sell and Therapist Jenn Schmitz talk with Medical Journalist Rob Wipond author of Your Consent is Not Required.
The stories we tell about “care” rarely match what happens behind locked doors. We sit down with journalist Rob Wipond, author of Your Consent Is Not Required, to unpack how ordinary people are swept into psychiatric detention through vague laws, crisis-line escalations, and everyday institutional habits that confuse safety with control. Rob begins with his father’s involuntary commitment after cancer surgery—a case that morphed from a plea for help into months of heavy drugs and ECT—and then widens the lens to show how schools, workplaces, airports, and social media interactions now feed a system built on subjective risk calls.
We dig into 988: how a call marketed as confidential support can trigger location pinging, police dispatch, and hospitalization. Rob explains why call centers record conversations, how AI scans for “risk” cues, and why corporations are rushing into crisis services for data and revenue. Inside hospitals, we examine the lived reality: chemical restraints, thin programming, and a compliance-first culture that many say feels more punitive than therapeutic. It’s no surprise some people prefer jail—fixed sentences and clear rules—over indefinite holds where release depends on a clinician’s mood and your willingness to take meds.
Legally, the net has widened. Beyond “danger to self or others,” states rely on grave disability and deterioration standards that hinge on prediction, not proof. We talk through how those standards play out on the ground, why insurance often dictates outcomes more than need, and how “community treatment” extends control into homes with long-acting injections and check-ins. Throughout, Rob challenges the left-right narratives that justify force as compassion or control. The data show coercion often backfires, undermining trust and discouraging help-seeking when it matters most.
What would a better approach look like? Real informed consent, peer-led crisis alternatives, transparent data practices, and response systems that people can trust. If you care about civil rights, mental health, and honest help, this conversation will shift how you see crisis care, 988, and psychiatric power. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs nuance, and leave a review telling us: what part of this changed your mind?
We're recruiting for a first-of-its-kind psychiatric medication withdrawal research study. If you've experienced psychiatric medication withdrawal, you may be eligible to participate. Email DrTeralyn@DrTeralyn.com to learn more.
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