Mental health in the UK has faced a large amount of disparity in regards to the way that people are treated in relation to their human rights. This is an issue that is still difficult to understand as 1 in 4 people will suffer from a mental illness in the UK today[1]. The experience of suffering with a mental illness can be interlinked with inequality and the question of an individual’s freedom and autonomy being taken away from them. It appears that the question of having one’s freedom is directly under attack when suffering from a mental health illness which leads to the question of whether they are ever free. Efforts directed towards achieving autonomy and freedom should not become separate from achieving substantive equality for people with mental health illnesses. Structural factors such as inequality, gender, family living conditions, socio-economic conditions, and discrimination contribute to the ways in which a mental illness can increase and have a negative impact on an individual’s ability to recover from an episode. A human rights approach to mental health is determined on acknowledging the individual who is suffering with a mental health illness by respecting their dignity as an individual, their autonomy and independence, and their freedom to make their own choices. Operating through a rights-based approach instructs us to examine and scrutinise the language, implications, and models of mental health that have been adopted previously, especially when taking health discourse into account. Such an approach also requires us to look at the ways in which human rights have been characterised as being based on a particular mental state and how discrimination characterises the lives of people with mental health illnesses especially when matters of treatment are brought into the question. In this essay, I will look at Michel Foucault’s approach to human rights being based on a particular mental state and the implications of treating people solely through the approach of medication. I will use this approach in the form a timeline dating from the 19th century to the present day, specifically looking at two case studies: the first titled, A Mind That Found Itself[2] by Clifford Whittingham Beers written in 1908 and David’s Box: The Journals and Letters of a young man diagnosed as a Schizophrenic 1960-1971[3] by Richard Hallam and Michael Bender in order to provide an analysis of how access to the right type of mental health treatment appears to be a case of privilege which can still be seen in mental health treatment today. I will also look at the approach of healthcare within the UK still being centred on excluding those with mental health illness rather than integrating them within their communities as both case studies show. Finally, while acknowledging that healthcare professionals are under a duty of care to provide people with medication as a form of treatment, I would argue that it should be down to the person suffering with a mental illness to exercise the right and agency in their own lives and who, consequently, should be supported in such a way that the barrier between their freedom and autonomy should not work against them in relation to their mental state.>