NCJ Number
196695
Date Published
2002
Length
503 pages
Annotation
This second volume of a two-volume set entitled, "Psychiatry in Law, Law in Psychiatry," addresses the application and impact of the law in psychiatry, with attention to the hospitalization of the mentally ill and psychiatric malpractice.
Abstract
The two chapters that discuss the hospitalization of the mentally ill focus on civil commitment (involuntary hospitalization) and the right to treatment and the right to refuse treatment. The chapter on civil commitment traces the history of law and policy regarding the involuntary commitment of persons to mental health facilities. In addition to reviewing the history of commitment law and policy in the United States, the chapter also briefly mentions commitment law in some other countries, including Poland and Russia. The current trend in commitment law in the United States is discussed in the concluding section of the chapter. Current civil commitment law is intended to protect the civil liberties of persons alleged to be mentally ill and to accelerate the trend toward community treatment of the mentally ill as an alternative to hospitalization in remote State institutions. The chapter on the right to receive and refuse treatment focuses on various State laws that bear upon the types of treatments mentally ill patients have a right to refuse, such as psychosurgery and electroshock treatment, and treatments that can be administered without the patient's consent, such as drug therapy. The second major section of the book addresses laws pertinent to psychiatric malpractice. Topics discussed in the 12 chapters of this section are the establishment of malpractice liability, an overview of psychiatric malpractice, admission or apology in liability prevention, breach of confidentiality, informed consent, the boundary violation of undue familiarity, failure to treat, suicide, the duty of therapists to third parties, and the regulation of the practice of psychotherapy. Chapter notes and appended highlights in the history of law and psychiatry, ethics guidelines for the practice of forensic psychiatry, and specialty guidelines for forensic psychologists and case, name, and subject indexes