preview

The Consent Dilemma Essay

Decent Essays

The current method to heal mentally ill patients in the United States is mostly done through forced medication. Elyn Saks believes there may be a better way to help the men and women suffering with a mental illness than forced medication. “The Consent Dilemma” shows how the current method of forced medication is outdated and how there is a more effective method to help people that have a mental illness. All the rhetoric devices are used in “The Consent Dilemma” by Elyn Saks in the magazine Politico. The rhetoric devices are used to show that the current system used to help the mentally ill is in need of an update.
The rhetoric device that is most prominently used is Pathos. She speaks of her self’s experiences as a person diagnosed with …show more content…

The author speaks of her experiences as a person that suffered from schizophrenia. The statement by Saks that says, “I fell ill with schizophrenia”, proves that she should know what is best for someone that may suffer from a mental illness. It is used to change how the audience feels in the sense that she should know the experiences a mental illness went through and what could better themselves. She speaks of how the forced medication was difficult for her to go through, and how hard she had to fight just to get off of the medication when she says, “I made multiple attempts to get off the medication”. The audience feels a sense of sadness as they feel that she went through a hard time that could have been made much easier if the system used by hospitals was finally updated to be much better than it currently is. It would also bring about a feeling of sympathy and it may even bring about a small sense of empathy towards some. The audience would be feeling sorry for here because of how the difficult time she spent trying to get off the medication could have been much easier if only the system treated the patients they are trying to heal better.
There are not many uses of logos in this article, it can clearly be seen that this was the rhetoric device with the least amount of time spent one. Although it is not really used in the article, it can still be seen when she speaks of the MacArthur test that is currently used, and the

Get Access