As might be expected, the agreement is a process and, in some cases, may involve the whole family, including the parents, the adult child concerned and the siblings concerned. It may also include support and health professionals. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNHRC) states that children have the right to their own opinion, that their opinions are important, and that their opinions must be heard and taken into account when custody decisions are made.1 I think the intentions of the AU and the UNCCR are linked. Children should feel part of the process when considering addressing family mental health issues. As a parent working on my own state of healing and well-being, I believe that AU allows my child to feel comfortable, to share the impact of my mental health issues on him. This, in turn, helps us address these concerns – what is it all about with great parenting! The Ulysses Agreement aims to guide and assist people who are treating or caring for someone with an acute mental illness. It is particularly suitable for conditions such as schizophrenia, which, although episodic and clinically manageable in many cases, can still manifest itself in bizarre, even threatening behaviors, which can cause fear and anxiety in anyone who comes into contact with such behavior. Mental illness can be one of the big grey areas of life for those who suffer from it and a big management problem for those who care for them. However, for parents who are constantly faced with adequate care for their adult child with mental illness, the Odyssein Agreement can be an effective instrument of mutual clarification, both as an expression of the child`s wishes and as an agreed agenda for parental action. Patients` prescriptions for psychiatric care are controversial in a number of Western societies. The use of psychiatric prescriptions for patients (or so-called “ulysses” contracts) would allow the mentally ill, competent and in remission, who wish to intervene in a timely manner in the event of a future psychological crisis, to pre-authorize treatment at a later stage, if they are incompetent, to not comply and refuse care.
This minimized the devastating consequences of recurrent psychosis. Patients` psychiatric prescriptions are prone to abuse and abuse.9, 39 You can become tools of power and control in the hands of mental health professionals. The issue of medical power is complex. Power is a central element in medicine and the doctor-patient relationship.42, 43 The physician has the means to influence the patient and will normally do so to ensure the patient`s collaboration and compliance in the treatment process. The question is whether power is used in the context of an ongoing narrative process or whether it is used to impose certain solutions by shortening narratives. It`s also not an easy topic, as some aspects of the narratives inevitably need to be reduced to make room for reflection and debate. It is therefore not wise to demand that power be excluded. However, it is useful to be critical of its use and to ensure that its primary purpose is the competence of the patient.43 By providing psychiatric patient prescriptions as part of joint narrative work, we can determine specific requirements for them to have moral weight. . . .
