Almost a Revolution

This is the first overview of the major mental health law reforms of the last generation and their consequences. These reforms have aimed to make it more difficult to hospitalize and treat people with mental illness, and easier to punish them. The book offers a surprising appraisal of the consequences: less changed than almost anyone predicted. From judges to family members, when the law contradicted commonsense ideas of how to deal with the mentally ill, it was bent or ignored. Appelbaum demonstrates this thesis in analyses of important legal reforms related to involuntary hospitalization, liability of professionals for violent acts committed by their patients, the right to refuse treatment. and the insanity defence.