David Cohen, professor of social welfare, was cited in an article by Mad in America about the non-consensual institutionalization of people for psychiatric treatment. Cohen said that a lack of discussion on social media regarding the issue of involuntary treatment is part of a vacuum of inquiry that has allowed such practices to continue unnoticed. He discussed how coercion is still socially accepted because people justify the use of force against certain people although it cannot be justified by contemporary science. “The desire to coerce others makes the theories of psychiatric science acceptable, even though the theories are so full of holes that they can’t be accepted,” Cohen said. “It gives everything the sense that we can trust psychiatrists to do this thing which is otherwise distasteful to our democratic norms, our rules of law, our sanctity of the individual and our respect for privacy.”