 Just as it is usually assumed that a patient cannot be declared incompetent simply on the basis of her (perhaps unusual) values, similarly a patient cannot be declared incompetent simply on the basis of her diagnosis. For obvious reasons this is most relevant for patients with mental illnesses or cognitive impairments, where there is a history of assuming that all such patients are globally incompetent (Kim 2010: 11). Historically this resulted in large losses of freedom for many individuals.