Mental illness and intellectual disability (formerly called mental retardation) impact 20% of Americans, and have enormous personal, legal, and policy implications for patients, families, and society. This Nutshell introduces you to the broad range of criminal and civil issues in mental health law, including diagnosis of mental illness; expert testimony on mental health issues; civil commitment; competence to stand trial; the insanity defense; various competencies; ethical/legal issues facing mental health professionals, including informed consent, confidentiality, privilege, and malpractice; discrimination against persons with mental illness; financial and medical benefits for disabled persons.
Examining the legal structure of the mental health system, this book explains the legal principles. It places them in the context of their practical application, the realities of patient life, and the complexities of organising care. This edition gives an analysis of the Mental Capacity Act, 2005 and the Draft Mental Health Bill.
Written by esteemed legal scholar Michael L. Perlin, this indispensable Advanced Introduction examines the long-standing but ever-dynamic relationship between law and mental health. The author discusses and contextualises how the law, primarily in the United States but also in other countries, treats mental health, intellectual disabilities, and mental incapacity, giving examples of how issues such as the rights of patients, the death penalty and the insanity defense permeate constitutional, civil, and criminal matters, and indeed the general practice of law.
Expert coverage deals with civil commitment, as well as hearings to determine fitness for trial or execution. Examines criminal defenses and sentencing as they relate to the mental capacity of defendants. Overviews categories of mental health professionals, including the scope of their work, liscensing, and discipline. Discusses the major psychiatric disorders. Clinical psychiatric evidence is examined, including a review of admissibility of evidence, qualifying experts, and establishing a basis for clinical opinion. Medical malpractice and negligence are also examined.
Psychiatrists, Approved Social Workers and Mental Health Nurses require a clear understanding of mental health legislation and case law in addition to clinical knowledge for their practice. All this information, and more, is provided in Mental Health Law: a practical guide. Multi-disciplinary in approach, this book provides all you need to kno
Trainees consistently mentioned how helpful it was to have laws relevant to their clinical practice explained in a way that removed the mystery and anxiety associated with lawyers, courts, and judges. Each volume in the series sets forth, in a clear, straightforward, and user-friendly manner, pertinent legislation and court cases, covering why the law was written, what the law says, and how the law affects clinical practice.
An indispensable book for both student and practicing clinicians, as well as for lawyers who want a better understanding of this interesting and ever-changing field, The Essentials of Florida Mental Health Law explains in a straightforward and user-friendly manner the laws most relevant to mental health practice in Florida.
Doubts about the reality of mental illness and the benefits of psychiatric treatment helped foment a revolution in the law's attitude toward mental disorders over the last 25 years. Legal reformers pushed for laws to make it more difficult to hospitalize and treat people with mental illness, and easier to punish them when they committed criminal acts. Advocates of reform promised vast changes in how our society deals with the mentally ill; opponents warily predicted chaos and mass suffering. Now, with the tide of reform ebbing, Paul Appelbaum examines what these changes have wrought. The message emerging from his careful review is a surprising one: less has changed than almost anyone predicted. When the law gets in the way of commonsense beliefs about the need to treat serious mental illness, it is often put aside. Judges, lawyers, mental health professionals, family members, and the general public collaborate in fashioning an extra-legal process to accomplish what they think is fair for persons with mental illness. Appelbaum demonstrates this thesis in analyses of four of the most important reforms in mental health law over the past two decades: involuntary hospitalization, liability of professionals for violent acts committed by their patients, the right to refuse treatment, and the insanity defense. This timely and important work will inform and enlighten the debate about mental health law and its implications and consequences. The book will be essential for psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, lawyers, and all those concerned with our policies toward people with mental illness.
The Court of Last Resort looks at decision making in a mental-health court and at the dilemmas of treating mental illness while protecting patients' legal rights. Carol Warren spent seven years studying hearings in a large California court where people who had been involuntarily committed to institutions for psychiatric treatment could petition for their release. In this book she confronts questions of whether mental illness is real or only a label for societal control, whether the government should be involved in committing the deviant to institutions, and how the interaction of judges, psychiatrists, families, police, and other individuals and agencies affect the court's administration of mental-health law. Though the cases in this book fall under California's Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, Warren's analysis of conflicts between legal and medical models of behavior is of national and international importance both to sociologists and to the many professionals who work at the juncture of mental health and the law.
