Involuntary commitment, civil commitment, or involuntary hospitalization/hospitalisation is a legal process through which an individual who is deemed by a qualified agent to have symptoms of severe mental disorder is detained in a psychiatric hospital (inpatient) where they can be treated involuntarily. This treatment may involve the administration of psychoactive drugs, including involuntary administration. In many jurisdictions, people diagnosed with mental health disorders can also be forced to undergo treatment while in the community; this is sometimes referred to as outpatient commitment and shares legal processes with commitment.
Outpatient commitment—also called assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) or community treatment orders (CTO)—refers to a civil court procedure wherein a legal process orders an individual diagnosed with a severe mental disorder to adhere to an outpatient treatment plan designed to prevent further deterioration or recurrence that is harmful to themselves or others.
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals or behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative identity disorder, major depressive disorder, and others.
St. Elizabeths Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Southeast Washington, D.C. operated by the District of Columbia Department of Mental Health. The hospital opened in 1855 under the name Government Hospital for the Insane, the first federally operated psychiatric hospital in the United States.
The Lanterman–Petris–Short (LPS) Act regulates involuntary civil commitment to a mental health institution in the state of California. The act set the precedent for modern mental health commitment procedures in the United States. The bipartisan bill was co-authored by California State Assemblyman Frank D. Lanterman (R) and California State Senators Nicholas C. Petris (D) and Alan Short (D), and signed into law in 1967 by Governor Ronald Reagan. The Act went into full effect on July 1, 1972. It cited seven articles of intent:
The Institute of Mental Health (IMH), formerly known as Woodbridge Hospital, is a psychiatric hospital in Hougang, Singapore.
Fulbourn Hospital is a mental health facility located between the Cambridgeshire village of Fulbourn and the Cambridge city boundary at Cherry Hinton, about 5 miles (8 km) south-east of the city centre. It is managed by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. The Ida Darwin Hospital site is situated behind Fulbourn Hospital. It is run and managed by the same trust, with both hospitals sharing the same facilities and staff pool.
The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 (CMHA) was an act to provide federal funding for community mental health centers and research facilities in the United States. This legislation was passed as part of John F. Kennedy's New Frontier. It led to considerable deinstitutionalization.
Deinstitutionalisation is the process of replacing long-stay psychiatric hospitals with less isolated community mental health services for those diagnosed with a mental disorder or developmental disability. In the late 20th century, it led to the closure of many psychiatric hospitals, as patients were increasingly cared for at home, in halfway houses and clinics, in regular hospitals, or not at all.
Assertive community treatment (ACT) is an intensive and highly integrated approach for community mental health service delivery. ACT teams serve individuals who have been diagnosed with serious and persistent forms of mental illness, predominantly but not exclusively the schizophrenia spectrum disorders. ACT service recipients may also have diagnostic profiles that include features typically found in other DSM-5 categories. Many have histories of frequent psychiatric hospitalization, substance abuse, victimization and trauma, arrests and incarceration, homelessness, and additional significant challenges. The symptoms and complications of their mental illnesses have led to serious functioning difficulties in several areas of life, often including work, social relationships, residential independence, money management, and physical health and wellness. By the time they start receiving ACT services, they are likely to have experienced failure, discrimination, and stigmatization, and their hope for the future is likely to be quite low.
Community mental health services (CMHS), also known as community mental health teams (CMHT) in the United Kingdom, support or treat people with mental disorders in a domiciliary setting, instead of a psychiatric hospital (asylum). The array of community mental health services vary depending on the country in which the services are provided. It refers to a system of care in which the patient's community, not a specific facility such as a hospital, is the primary provider of care for people with a mental illness. The goal of community mental health services often includes much more than simply providing outpatient psychiatric treatment.
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of deleterious mental conditions. These include various matters related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions.
Basaglia Law or Law 180 is the Italian Mental Health Act of 1978 which signified a large reform of the psychiatric system in Italy, contained directives for the closing down of all psychiatric hospitals and led to their gradual replacement with a whole range of community-based services, including settings for acute in-patient care. The Basaglia Law is the basis of Italian mental health legislation. The principal proponent of Law 180 and its architect was Italian psychiatrist Franco Basaglia. Therefore, Law 180 is known as the “Basaglia Law” from the name of its promoter. The Parliament of Italy approved the Law 180 on 13 May 1978, and thereby initiated the gradual dismantling of psychiatric hospitals. Implementation of the psychiatric reform law was accomplished in 1998 which marked the very end of the state psychiatric hospital system in Italy. The Law has had worldwide impact as other counties took up widely the Italian model. It was Democratic Psychiatry which was essential in the birth of the reform law of 1978.
The Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center (CTPHC) is a 250-bed psychiatric hospital in Jessup, Maryland.
The Department of Mental Hygiene (DMH) is a component of the New York state government composed of three autonomous offices:
John Hunt is an Irish citizen who was involuntarily detained as a psychiatric patient. The conditions of Hunt's detention have been the subject of a sustained campaign by his former partner and mother of his child Gráinne Humphrys. He was committed as an involuntary psychiatric patient in 2005 and was detained at a secure psychiatric unit at Our Lady's Hospital in Cork until August 2011 when he was transferred to the Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum, Dublin. Until 2010 he was not granted leave for any temporary release from the Cork facility to visit his family. As a result of the campaign of his former partner that year, the Cork hospital allowed Hunt six hours of unsupervised leave every two weeks. Later, following a violent altercation with a psychiatric nurse, this leave was rescinded, and Hunt was transferred to the main Irish forensic psychiatric unit in Dundrum.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to psychiatry:
The Priory Hospital, Roehampton, often referred to as The Priory, is a private mental health hospital in South West London. It was founded in 1872 and is now part of the Priory Group, which was acquired in 2011 by an American private equity firm, Advent International.
AH vs West London Mental Health Trust was a landmark case in England, which established a legal precedent in 2011 when Albert Laszlo Haines (AH), a patient in Broadmoor Hospital, a high security psychiatric hospital, was able to exercise a right to a fully open a public mental health review tribunal to hear his appeal for release. The case and the legal principles it affirmed have been described as opening up the secret world of tribunals and National Health Service secure units, and as having substantial ramifications for mental health professionals and solicitors, though how frequently patients will be willing or able to exercise the right is not yet clear.
