Summary: | The central institutions of mental health law treat individuals with mental illness differently than others. However, institutions rarely provide a clear conception of mental illness or a clear justification for differential treatment. In this book, the author creates a bold new framework for examining the major intersections between legal institutions and the idea of mental illness. In doing so, he reviews various efforts to reconcile involuntary commitment with the right to refuse treatment or to elevate one power or right over the other. He also advances a compelling case for requiring, as a prerequisite to commitment, a determination of decisional incompetence. Throughout the book, the author uses hypothetical actors with given mental traits, disorders, or diseases and specified behavioral patterns for comparative analysis and differentiation. By using these fictional characters, he both demonstrates and critiques the operations of the various components of mental health law. The volume clarifies the respective roles and responsibilities of legal actors, clinicians, and social scientists and offers guidance concerning the appropriate relationships among these roles and responsibilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved).
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