From disabling to supporting non-autonomous people. An ethical approach and new comparison areas in forensic psychopathology

Abstract

The new ethical and legal measures to protect not fully self-sufficient peoples involves a different approach in the evaluation and support of physical or mental disabilities that affect personal autonomy. In the view of a broad recognition of individuals’ needs, the Act on Support Administration introduces an highly mouldable legal instrument aimed at supplying the case in point with the most appropriate protection, with the care of the quality of life of weak persons. The Act also sets relevant impacts in the forensic psychopathology field, where we are witnessing a genuine reformulation of the tasks and activities of the professionals called to face a new frontier of the law, aimed at underlining the thick plot of relationships related to the whole human existence. According to the new regulatory system, the care of a person in need occurs in recognizing the fragile subject as a person who can and must live in a world of relations, preserving and making full use of his/her own skills and potential. Several ethical implications of this new legal view of a person in need are obvious, and comparing it with the previous cultural and protective schemes, differently draws attention to new areas of confrontation. Starting from merely diagnosing one’s inability to act, the investigation is extended to a broader assessment, aimed at evaluating one’s personal way of living one’s own specific condition, establishing relations with other people, overcoming any dysfunctions, running oneself and one’s own interests, according to the analysis and identification of the most appropriate tools to assure support and protection to fragile subjects. Therefore, it is necessary an articulated and complex evaluation, able to design and achieve, even on the basis of possible specific clinical or psychosocial contributions, any rehabilitative measures which can provide support to the beneficiary, in an integrated and united point of view. The duty to explore and identify appropriate and proportionate measures according the specific needs of the beneficiary’s protection, also highlights the need for a close connection and synergy between all territorial services and judicial structures involved in the care and protection of the person. The development and constant refinement of a rehabilitation project are in fact devoted to overcoming the functional limitations that affect the possibility for unable people to take directly care of their own interests,as well as the same suitability of the support measures chosen to fully achieve a defence purpose. After several years from the entry into force of the law on support, the Authors are going to examine the difficult coordination process among the various Institutes of protection, as well as the contribution that the forensic psychopathology can and should provide to the Court in order to dilute the critical state of the law, underline its goals, avoiding any worrying generalizations and inadequate applications.