Heat waves and the mentally ill

Tort Liability of the Mentally Ill and Mentally Deficient

The Mentally Ill in America

It is characteristic of the American approach to social problems that it should be thought worth while for the American Foundation for Mental Hygiene to finance a survey of the treatment of the mentally ill. It is perhaps not so characteristic that the subject should be approached by a social historian from the standpoint of the gradual development of social attitudes and of the institutions th...

Criminalization of the mentally ill.

In the great world of “they sayers,” they say that the more things change, the more things stay the same. Over a decade ago, Peplau (1994), affectionately known as the mother of psychiatric nursing, observed that the first great psychiatric revolution, and the beginning of contemporary psychiatric nursing, occurred when patients were moved from jails to asylums, and from asylums to hospitals. R...

Are the mentally ill dangerous?

The author reviews studies that address the question, "Are the mentally ill dangerous?" She points out that as psychiatrists, we have the responsibility of evaluating the mentally ill and making judgments about their dangerousness that may restrict their civil liberties. Therefore, the more practical question for us is: "Which mentally ill, under what circumstances, are dangerous?" She discusse...

Exoneration of the mentally ill.

Mental illness may be manifested in the impairment of understanding or of volitional control. Impairment of understanding may be manifested in delusions. Impairment of volitional control is shown when a person is unable to act in accordance with good reasons that he himself accepts. In order for an impairment of understanding or of self-control to exculpate, the offence must be causally connect...