Background Commitment to psychiatric care is in Finland allowed for minors in broader terms than for adults. Minors can be committed to and detained in involuntary psychiatric treatment if they suffer from severe mental disorder and fullfil the additional commitment criteria defined in the Mental Health Act. Adults can be committed to involuntary psychiatric care only if they are mentally ill (...

Depending on one's point of view, court-ordered community treatment is a tool to help people with serious mental disorders live successfully in the com munity while furthering theirprogress ofrecovery, or it is a glaring example of paternalism gone awry. Treatment-oriented advocates like the National Al liance for the Mentally 111 (NAMI) and theTreatment Advocacy Center are pushing what they in...

In the past twenty-five years it has been my pleasure to work with many young Japanese surgeons who have visited our clinics and laboratories in Chicago. Naturally I have been delighted to note the progress which each one of these has made after his return home to Japan. Now I find them occupying posts of great importance and responsibility in your hospitals and medical schools. Among these men...

In a state in which patient refusal of antipsychotic medication in all nonemergency situations must be respected, lawyers and psychiatrists in western Massachusetts have employed probate court decisions as involuntary outpatient treatment orders. The legal, administrative, and clinical issues in sustaining court-ordered outpatient treatment are discussed by focusing on case examples demonstrati...

This paper details the grounds for compulsory treatment, compulsory admissions in an emergency department and compulsory out-patient treatment in Portugal. Portuguese mental health legislation has improved significantly over recent years, with enhanced safeguards, rapid and rigorous review and clear criteria for compulsory treatment, although much remains to be done, especially in relation to t...