Insight and Disability

In Reply: Dr. Sigmund makes an excellent point. If a person with mental illness declines to take medication because of a lack of insight into the illness, the person may not qualify for ADA protection because he or she has not taken corrective action. Thus the illness itself may lead to behavior that disqualifies the person from the ADA's coverage. This is a paradoxical result, to say the least, given the intent of the ADA and, as a practical matter, penalizes the person for having a mental illness.