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Totalitarian countries

I added the POV tag as the entire section seemed to radiate the tell-a-tale signs of it.

My issues:

  • The evil/benevolent/whatever nature of a totalitarian system if for the reader to decide.
  • Non-totalitarian systems have also sent people to the happy house for "homosexuality and adultery". The totalitarian systems of the world are not the only systems who've been total bastards to their citizenry in the name of "mental health".

Anyone have any feedback before I edit? - Brother Dave Thompson 23:57, 5 August 2007 (UTC) reply

The DSM described homosexuality as a mental disorder. Isn't that an American publication? Who's to decide what is and isn't totalitarian? My suggestion. Change the header to "other countries". I put in a {{ cite}} tag for the paragraph on the Soviet Union. If someone is willing to find some solid evidence that this is true they should do so otherwise it will get removed in a few months. Mundilfari ( talk) 08:37, 24 November 2009 (UTC) reply

You can not compare the issue of "homosexuality and adultery" to the issue of the so called "mental illness". When it comes to "homosexuality and adultery" it is an issue of civilization, and a civilized person keeps his head between his shoulders, not between his legs; some people simply have higher standards. Just look at the divorce rates and the lives of men and women in the countries that allow such rubbish. Women there live like toilets, from one man to the next (ofcourse every temporary period with a man is called love untill they "break" their relation). Anyways, it is an issue of values and tangible crime. Of course, calling homosexuality or adultery a "mental illness" is absolute rubbish. The issue of mental health on the other hand, is one where an officer can just detain you without breaking any law. When all else fails, when you have nothing against him, call him a witch or, as the "civilized people" put it, "mentally ill". This is incredible power that goes against our very nature; some complete stranger can threaten your freedom because he decided he can help you! He can not tell you what is your crime, all he says I am here to help you. If you fight back, it is a crime. If you run, it is a crime! This is very serious, and mostly serious to the homeless. -- 99.246.101.166 ( talk) 16:49, 23 December 2010 (UTC) reply

Another thing I would like to point out in case it was not understood from what I previously wrote, is that with homosexuality and adultery, regardless of your views on them, you can provide real evidence whether they happened or not. A witness, a blood test, etc. With "mental illness" you can not. There is simply no objective proof that you are mentally ill. -- 99.246.101.166 ( talk) 16:49, 23 December 2010 (UTC) reply

Whether you personally believe homosexual or adulterous behaviour to be morally right-or-wrong, they are acts which require a purposeful decision to act upon urges -- just like stealing money or baking a cake. Mental illness is involuntary and cannot be compared in such a simple manner. To counter your second claim of objectitivity: when somebody tries, for no reasonable purpose, to smash their head through a glass window in front of witnesses & CCTV, that's fairly objective proof of a mental health issue. Although many societies abuse the term "mentally ill" in order to punish political refuseniks or homosexuals, this does not change the fundamental requirement within any society to detain some people for their own safety or for the safety of others, if they are unable to control their behaviour. Mrstonky ( talk) 18:56, 1 January 2012 (UTC) reply
Mental illness is NOT involuntary ( a double negative) . You claim "bad" behaviour to be involuntary, like a thief says he didn't steal the bread for his feeling of hunger. Whose fingers closed, whose hand took (stole) the money? Whose feet and legs ran away? People have freewill to chose to be "bad" or "good". To starve or to steal is a choice. Unable to control one owns behaviour is a fiction of the Elite.-- Mark v1.0 ( talk) 13:37, 17 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Well I wouldn't completely reject the concept of uncontrollable behavior, sometimes I want to do some work but cannot. However, You've got a good point, it does not make sense for behavior caused by mental illness to be called "involuntary". Sure, not every insane person said "I want to be insane", but voluntarism is defined and decisions produced by a person's own thoughts regardless of how rational the thoughts are. You can't say that every smart person who walks across a bridge did so because he or she is willing, while all dumb people who walk across a bridge were forced to do so by their dumbness against their will. 173.180.202.22 ( talk) 04:25, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Boyer’s suggestions

The contents of this article have been dealt with in a much more informative, neutral, and coherent manner in Involuntary commitment. I would advise that this article needed cleaning up, but the article itself is unnecessary. Therefore, I recommend that it be deleted in its entirety. IronDuke 22:24, 4 November 2005 (UTC) reply

What are you talking about? This is the talk page for that article! -- Daniel C. Boyer 17:26, 5 November 2005 (UTC) reply
I suspect IronDuke probably came here, as I did, via a "Discuss" link on a mergeto tag on some other page, such as Psychiatric imprisonment. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:55, 21 January 2006 (UTC) reply

Added mention of controversy (from a civil-liberties perspective) over civil commitment.

Daniel C. Boyer

Added more text. One needs to make a distinction between psychiatric commitment and civil commitment. People have been arguing about psychiatric commitment since the 1960's, and that issue is well argued. Civil commitment for sex offenders is something entirely new.

Added mention of Lawerence Stevens as exception to "few would argue that under no circumstances should a psychiatric patient be held against their will".

Daniel C. Boyer

Added mention of ordering people to take psychiatric medication as an alternative to involuntary commitment and a cause for the decreased incidence of involuntary commitment.

Daniel C. Boyer

Added link to Lawrence Stevens article.

Daniel C. Boyer

Added parenthetical mention of "mad liberation."

Daniel C. Boyer

Added mention of nearly-synonymous "mental hygiene" laws.

Daniel C. Boyer

The "danger to self or others" standard of the Baker Act (paralleled in many other mental hygiene laws) is supposed to be protective of the civil liberties of those who might be wrongly committed, which is ridiculous as it is hardly a bright-line test and is indeed one of nearly infinitely open-ended ambiguity. The test is based on the assumption that it will be used in a certain way, but facially almost every individual could be called a "danger to self or others." Judge Watchler has pointed out (and I maintain this is putting it mildly) that "dangerousness" is "open to various interpretations" (Mtr. of Torsney, 47 N.Y. 2d 667, 686-87 (Ct. App. 1979)(Wachtler, J., dissenting).

Daniel C. Boyer

Might the mention of the Stevens article on suicide be better placed under the article on suicide? What is its relevance to this?

Daniel C. Boyer

I am concerned that the passage relating to the 1960s ("the involuntary commitment were lax and this led to a number of horror stories of people with no mental illness being trapped in an institution") might lead readers to believe this does not occur today when it can and does. Could this be reworked to relieve this possible misimpression?

Daniel C. Boyer

See here for a possible criticism of involuntary commitment. -- Daniel C. Boyer

How can criticism of involuntary commitment by believers in the theory of reality enforcement be mentioned in this article (what is the best NPOV way to do this)? -- Daniel C. Boyer

"It is typically used against patients with mental illness, particularly schizophrenia."

This begs the questions: Are people wrongly committed, even accidentally or on purpose? This needs to be more clearly explained to allow for the possibility that people who have no mental illness are wrongly committed. This has a pro-involuntary-commitment bias. -- Daniel C. Boyer

"Unfortunately, community care facilities were in general not well-funded, and this resulted in many mental patients left to fend for themselves." This is not NPOV. Perhaps this should be rewritten to indicate that the flaw in the theory, when put into practice, was that "community care facilities were in general not well-funded" rather than using the word "unfortunately". -- Daniel C. Boyer

This entire article is U.S.-centric and revisions should be made to it to make it less so. -- Daniel C. Boyer 14:16 Oct 2, 2002 (UTC)

The practice of involuntary commitment does not necessarily violate the First Amendment (see anti-psychiatry), but it might. -- Daniel C. Boyer

I am puzzled by commitment of persons suffering from dementia (senile aswell as pre-senile) isn't focused in the article. That ought to be a pretty large group, also in USA. -- Johan Magnus 01:08 19 May 2003 (UTC)

State law varies as to whether people can be committed for reasons that are not, stricta sensu, "mental illness" (if you believe in such a thing or if such a thing exists); for instance, Michigan law specificially excludes the involuntary commitment of epileptics, drug addicts and alcoholics unless they otherwise qualify under the statute. This is going to be a very complicated subject if we include it in this article, although I think someone should make a start on this. -- Daniel C. Boyer 18:03 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Criticism that this article is U.S.-centric (with which I strongly agree) should be solved by adding info on the situation in other countries. -- Daniel C. Boyer 21:37, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)

"Gravely disabled" standard

Should this be mentioned and if so how should it be approached? -- Daniel C. Boyer 19:18, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have made a beginning on this standard but am conscious that it may be placed in the wrong area. Any help with this would be appreciated. -- Daniel C. Boyer 15:42, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Halfway house

How in this article should the subject of halfway houses be dealt with? -- Daniel C. Boyer 19:53, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Structure and some points

This article currently has no headings in the body of the text. These need to be inserted. As a psychiatrist reading this I find no mention of WHY psychiatrist use involuntary commitment. The article has a creeping POV that seems to imply that involuntary commitment is necessarily bad.

Involuntary commitment is the practice of using legal means or forms to commit a person to a mental hospital, insane asylum or psychiatric ward against the will or over the protests of that person.

No mention is made of it being used in the absence of informed consent or the inability to obtain informed consent because of psychotic thinking. For instance, a severely depressed person may passively accept hospitalisation but be incapable of giving informed consent due to psychomotor retardation.

I would strongly support mention of this if it is recognized that this itself is a POV and prefaced accordingly. -- Daniel C. Boyer 16:04, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Involuntary commitment is typically used against people diagnosed with ... [my stress]

What is wrong with the word "for" instead of "against". Does "against" have a special legal meaning in this context?

The commitment hearing or hearing protesting commitment is going to be adversarial, given the nature of the U.S. legal system, with the person wishing to avoid involuntary commitment or be freed from involuntary commitment (and his lawyer) attempting to get that result, and the prosecutor (supported, probably, by a psychiatrist or psychiatrists) attempting to get the individual committed or to continue being hospitalized. If the hearing was not goint to be adversarial, the individual would opt for voluntary commitment. Some psychiatrists and others may argue that commitment hearings should take a different form, or argue that they are acting in the best interests of the individual who has been or is potentially going to be involuntarily committed, and this should by all means be mentioned in the article, but it does not detract from the use of the word "against" being appropriate in this context as it adequately reflects the adversarial nature of the proceedings. -- Daniel C. Boyer 16:04, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, I did think that there might be a special legal reason for its use. -- CloudSurfer 18:12, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Though few would argue that under no circumstances should a psychiatric patient be held against his will, ...

This would be clearer as, "Most people would agree that there are circumstances when some psychiatric patients should be held without their consent, ..."

Maybe, but it would have to be tweaked as the passage as it reads now goes on to state exceptions. I would have no problem with this as long as the grammar is edited accordingly. -- Daniel C. Boyer 16:04, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The exeptions would still follow this statement as they remain exceptions to the "Most people would agree" statement. -- CloudSurfer 18:12, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I have not read the E. Fuller Torrey quote before. Wouldn't it be better to say WHY he said this? I suspect it is because the current laws he was talking about are too restrictive and require violence or danger before a person who needs treatment but refuses it can be treated involuntarily.-- CloudSurfer 22:48, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I should introduce where I am coming from. As an Australian psychiatrist I am completely unfamiliar with what such a court hearing would be like. Australian law allows for involuntary treatment without a court hearing but has several levels of checks and balances including a required hearing on request or after a specified time. A lawer is one of the three on the panel of such hearings. Thus there is no adversarial process at all as any legal hearing is more on the inquisitorial model, or whatever the legal term is. I do not think that the mental state of a severely depressed person or, perhaps more extremely, a person with catatonia is really POV. Anyone who observes them will see that they do not respond to questions in a meaningful way. In catatonia there is no response at all. In severe depression there may, perhaps after some minutes, be a mumbled response but that can be the extent of it. Neither is "fit to plead". I am not suggesting that these categories are the majority of people treated involuntarily. The next issue is informed consent and I agree that this is potentially POV but to what extent. If a person is psychotic then the psychosis can lead them to be incapable of understanding the nature of the issues at hand. If they are responding to voices telling them that everyone around them is part of a alien plot to incarcerate and torture them and they have accompanying delusions that fit with this then is it then POV to say they cannot give "informed consent" in the legal meaning of that term?
By the way, this does point to an issue that the article should be divided up into jurisdictions that require initial legal hearings and those that do not. -- CloudSurfer 18:06, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Yes, it would be quite good if this were done, and this page needs to become less U.S.-centric. Any info you could include on the situation in Australia would be most helpful. -- Daniel C. Boyer 19:38, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"classic paper"

I presume you have removed the word "classic" from the description of Rosenhan's paper on POV grounds but I think it should be reinstated. Many papers are produced only to be read and forgotten. Some achieve the standard of being referenced many times and some achieve even more significance. These papers become seminal works that are read, referenced and respected as major achievements in the field. The contents of these papers are taught to all students of the field. This is what is usually understood by the term "classic paper", or at least in my experience. The qualifier "classic" thus imparts information and without this qualifier the impact of this paper on the field of psychiatry is less obvious. For instance, the title of the paper was in my memory when I wrote this section. I was then able to look it up on the internet and found 906 references on Google. By comparison "Outcome of schizophrenia: some transcultural observations with particular reference to developing countries" returns 146 sites. This is not a classic paper but falls into the middle of the groups I have mentioned. The main article on the Rosenhan experiment states, "The study is considered an important and influential criticism of psychiatric diagnosis." The SOED's first defintion for classic is "Of the first rank or authority; standard, leading." That is the meaning I intended. -- CloudSurfer 07:40, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

CCHR

How should the controversial CCHR (with its connexion to Scientology) be brought up in this article? -- Daniel C.Boyer 18:54, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

My view is with a link that goes to an article that gives a background of the controversy. I know somewhere else there is a direct link to their site which might mean that unsuspecting people might take it at face value. I think if people have read the Scientology stuff then they can judge for themselves. -- CloudSurfer 22:44, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
This would be good. -- Daniel C. Boyer 20:26, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Protests

Is it true that Anyone may begin the commitment process by filing with the probate court an application alleging that someone has psychiatric disabilities and is dangerous to himself or others or gravely disabled. ? [1] Has anyone tried to use this to say that a politician (ie Bush) was insane by this method? You could propably prove that he is "Dangerous to himself or others "-- Guthrie 17:23, 7 October 2005 (UTC) reply

I would be quite interested in use of this as a protest and the results of any research into this. -- Daniel C. Boyer 19:28, 10 October 2005 (UTC) reply

It is my belief that it is absolutely an indication of the horrific situation those involuntarily committed find themselves in if CCHR is the main practical source of the securing of any rights they are supposed to have, which evidently it may be in some major way. The Church of Scientology has its own skeletons of forced commitment of people using their own so called mental health treatment with sometimes deadly results. Beyond that the extreme position of an organization that thinks it is the answer to everyone's issues renders their participation less credible. But if they get a patient out from a situation in which rights of all kinds are in practice denied and the length of stay in such places is arbitrarily extended as it often is, it rightfully earns some respect for what it does. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.156.228.245 ( talk) 23:35, 25 July 2010 (UTC) reply

Suggest merge with involuntary treatment

The topics on involuntary treatment are covered on this page; perhaps a merger? Andrew73 14:40, 27 December 2005 (UTC) reply

That may not work, since 'involuntary commitment' infers legal means have been used to enforce commitment or coerce compliance with psychotropic drug prescription regimes, whereas involuntary 'treatment' (a euphemistic term for methods that generally inflict mild to severe brain damage) often begins with forced drugging during a 72 hour hold, even before legal proceedings begin. Even without a court order, prior to release from a ward, patients may be subjected to long lasting injections (e.g., haloperidol). Ombudsman 04:33, 28 December 2005 (UTC) reply

Certainly in British Columbia patients can be treated involuntarily without a court proceeding. Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 04:56, 28 December 2005 (UTC) reply

The same holds true in the United States. In emergency situations, combative or pscyhotic patients are treated with neuroleptics like haloperidol in order to stabilize the patient and permit care. This may be viewed as "forced drugging," though this term seems a bit extreme as well; I doubt that short term exposure to these drugs causes permanent damage (aside from the risk of neuroleptic malignant syndrome). Andrew73 13:18, 28 December 2005 (UTC) reply
I think re: the use of the term "forced drugging" whether or not "short term exposure to these drugs causes permanent damage" is irrelevant. The use of these drugs may be beneficial or may be harmful (or a combination of the two), but it is certainly "forced," and is certainly "drugging". I think the only possible criticism of this phrase is the negative connotation, but I don't think there can be any doubt that it is accurate. -- Daniel C. Boyer 17:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC) reply

In many cases, "combative" patients are just trying to prevent psychiatric assault. Resistance is considered assault. And it's not only emergency situations -- such "treatment" can go on for months without a court proceeding. Being jumped by guards, thrown on the floor and injected is the very definition of forced drugging. I can't imagine wanting to dress it up as anything else. Once you're incarcerated on a psych ward, it's up to you to prove yourself sane. It's the complete opposite of the way it works in the criminal justice system. Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 15:54, 28 December 2005 (UTC) reply

At the same time, "combative" patients may be posing a physical threat to themselves and or other individuals. "Forced drugging" in this situation, on an emergent, short-term basis is justifiable. Long term involuntary commitment/treatment, at least in the state where I work, is regulated and cannot be done arbitrarily. Andrew73 17:12, 28 December 2005 (UTC) reply

Really? What if the only source of the "combat" is that the patient very much doesn't want to be treated? Is slamming people onto the floor and injecting them with neuroleptics still okay? Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 02:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC) reply

I was referring more specifically to patients who pose a danger to themselves or other individuals; not a harmdless individual who was only refusing treatment. Andrew73 02:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC) reply

The trouble is that it's impossible to correctly judge who poses a danger. And the standard of what constitutes danger varies wildly. "Only refusing treatment" gets many people locked up. Psychiatric treatment, especially in emergency situtations, is brutal and tends to escalate violence. We wouldn't allow convicted felons to be treated as poorly as we treat mental patients. Forced drugging is NEVER justifiable. It's a human rights violation that's got to stop. Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 03:13, 29 December 2005 (UTC) reply

I Oppose the merger as the two articles describe separate things. It is possible (although not necessarily legal) to be involuntarily detained/committed without being treated and involuntarily treated without being detained. The latter possibility is currently being discussed in the UK in revision of the Mental Health Act. The discussion above about the issue of human rights and involuntary treatment I believe qualifies this article for inclusion in category:medical ethics. -- Vincej 05:59, 30 December 2005 (UTC) reply

Of course the two articles need to be combined. Contrary to the remarks of Vincej, commitment does not necessarily mean detainment. One can be committed for involuntary treatment without being detained (see Assisted Outpatient Commitment) This is just another article in which fringe antipsychiatry advocates and Scientologists will ply their wares. I will keep an on eye on the site and eliminate the nonsense POV until it is inevitably merged.-- 24.55.228.56 16:04, 30 December 2005 (UTC) reply

Actually, 24.55, perhaps you should try reading Vince's comments again as you appear to have completely misunderstood what he was saying. Any reason you must be so offensive? I support human rights in psychiatry. I am not a "fringe antipsychiatry advocate" nor a "scientologist" nor am I "plying any wares." Contrary to your self-serving delusion, you haven't been "eliminating nonsense POV" but just offensively and anonymously reverting various editors' useful input. Your edits are just as POV as the ones you attempt to "correct." As is evidenced on your talk page, your conduct has not gone unnoticed by wiki admin. Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 02:51, 31 December 2005 (UTC) reply

"[T]here’s no question that MindFreedom Support Coalition International is on the fringe of psychiatric-reform advocacy." - The Boston Phoenix [2] -- 24.55.228.56 04:39, 31 December 2005 (UTC) reply

If you read it, then it must be true. Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 04:42, 31 December 2005 (UTC) reply

And now let's have that quote in its context:

"That said, there’s no question that MindFreedom Support Coalition International is on the fringe of psychiatric-reform advocacy. Toby Fisher of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), in Massachusetts, declines to comment specifically on the group. "I don’t know much about them," he says." - The Boston Phoenix [3]

So, 24.55, you're as dishonest as you are offensive. What a sweet moment! 24.55 hoist by his own petard! Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 04:43, 31 December 2005 (UTC) reply

Just like I said, MindFreedom is fringe. Fringe and obscure. Thanks for the cite and happy new year!-- 24.55.228.56 19:08, 1 January 2006 (UTC) reply

Once again, 24.55, you manage to completely miss the point. The article claims that MindFreedom is on the "fringe" but says nothing in support of that assertion. Indeed, NAMI's spokesperson can't either. MindFreedom is not an obscure group. They have consultative roster status with the United Nations. Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 01:51, 2 January 2006 (UTC) reply

Having read the article on Assisted Outpatient Commitment it seems to me that Outpatient Commitment is not the same as Involuntary Commitment and would fit better with the concept of Involuntary Treatment. However, these terms are unfamiliar to me as I am from the UK. May I suggest that we use terms that are more internationally understood to demonstrate these distinct concepts. -- Vincej 09:04, 31 December 2005 (UTC) reply

Vincej, I agree. Outpatient commitment is just one form of many forms of involuntary treatment. Please elaborate on international terminology. It would be great if everybody knew what we were talking about. Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 16:58, 31 December 2005 (UTC) reply

I would propose that the term psychiatric detention would be more widely understood than involuntary commitment. Perhaps once the merger request is resolved a renaming of the page could be considered. -- Vincej 18:17, 11 January 2006 (UTC) reply
I disagree. I think just about everyone knows, or could figure out, what both these phrases mean. -- Daniel C. Boyer 01:27, 23 January 2006 (UTC) reply

Addington v Texas

Is this 1979 Supreme Court decision still relevant? If so, I think it should be cited in the article. Apokrif 16:41, 2 April 2006 (UTC) reply

Merge article soon

If no objections I’ll merge the article not with Involuntary treatment, but with Psychiatric imprisonment. — Cesar Tort 22:18, 18 June 2006 (UTC) reply

Merged

I have merged an edited article of Psychiatric Imprisonment into the new section “Totalitarian countries” [4] and also did some minor copyedits in main article. Since it’s a longer article now it ought not be merged with Involuntary treatment. — Cesar Tort 03:24, 21 June 2006 (UTC) reply

As someone who has been involuntarily committed numerous times, I agree with this terminology being in practice synonymous with the prior one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.156.228.245 ( talk) 23:28, 25 July 2010 (UTC) reply

Also known as electrochock

Since electroconvulsive therapy is the mainstream term of use and since 'electroshock'

  • is Ambiguous on wether it's about using electricity to induce a state of shock or just using an electric shock,
  • does not describe the intents and purposes of the procedure,
  • is not the mainstream term of use, but rather a derogatory term used by a very small minority group and
  • Electroconvulsive_therapy is just a side note of this article

I have removed the 'also known as electroshock' part of the text under Treatment of illness

-- Sinus 14:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC) reply

Hello Sinus, you indicated that electroshock "does not describe the intents and purposes of the procedure".

The problem is that "electroconvulsive therapy" indicates the procedure as a "therapy" which from its ancient greek roots "therapeuo" means "cure"

I do appreciate that you refferred to the "neutral point of view...", nonetheless, the question whether

-the procedure is used to cure, to reinstate the health of patients, or

-to shock the patient in order to handle s/he according to medical goals (which in the cases in question try to balance between the interests of the patient and those of the community)

which I suspect is a legitimate question, would be better left open using the term "electroshock"

I may be wrong but I feel that reinstating 'also known as electroshock' would better mirror the duplicity of goals sought by the "therapy".

Criticism and contrary viewpoints welcome. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MauroUsai ( talk • contribs) 08:21, 3 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Identical to about.com experts page?

I hope you will forgive me if I'm missing something obvious, but I was looking up involuntary commitment laws and came across both this article, and an article at About.com's "Ask the Experts" site, and aside from maybe some paragraph shuffling, they seem to be verbatim copies of each other. I'm wondering how that can be possible without someone either plagarizing Wikipedia or violating Wikipedia's terms. The about.com page is at: http://experts.about.com/e/i/in/involuntary_commitment.htm

Maybe it's nothing, but it seemed odd to me so I felt I should mention it. If this has been explained before I apologize for wasting bandwidth. If it is as odd as it seems to me, I'm curious to see what the verdict is.

MadRabbit 10:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC) reply

It looks like they are copying the text from Wikipedia. Chupper 03:18, 31 July 2007 (UTC) reply


At the bottom of the page it states, "This is the "GNU Free Documentation License" reference article from the English Wikipedia", with a direct link to the article on Wikipedia, which means it satisfies Wikipedia's copyright requirements. -- RoscoWolf ( talk) 15:13, 22 February 2008 (UTC) reply

This article seems POV

It presents the point of view that involuntary commitment is bad. In reality, it is very hard (at least in the U.S.) to involuntarily commit someone. As a result, the large homeless population is composed of many mentally ill persons. I believe both points of view should be presented. -- Mattisse 22:22, 30 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I would disagree with you , in Virginia they have over an 91% commitment rate. Virginia Citizens With Psychiatric Labels Under Siege-- Mark v1.0 02:03, 14 October 2007 (UTC) reply
I would also argue that the homeless population is from a lack of [ Affordable_housing]rather than lab-test-undetectable mental illness-- Mark v1.0 02:13, 14 October 2007 (UTC) reply

Netherlands

The way current section is written, it sounds like there is a public disagreement about the TBS-system. As a resident, I do not recognize this tone at all. True, there are problems and scandals from time to time, but from my experience, the public opinion is not as negative as it's expressed here. The section should me more neutral. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.251.56.36 ( talk) 08:27, 31 December 2009 (UTC) reply

-- Your opinion is not to recognize this ? I'm a Dutch native and all the time there are discussions about the so called 'TBS system'. It’s inhumane, mentally abusive, torture like and so on... how does the Dutch society want the return of these help needing people? if they continue this way, they are putting a kettle on the furnish...   Retrorick wikipedia   talk  14:38, 27 July 2016 (UTC) reply

i need to know how to ack around a Psychiatrist. im not crazy but im scared. how do i talk sit or anything. i know that im not crazy its just that how would you feel if your parents were trying to commit you into something you didnt think that was right for you? im pretty sure you wouldnt. the reason they are considering this is because i dont listen to them. also i think its because they found out i smoke. i dont understand. how do i get help? thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.39.79.2 ( talk) 12:12, 10 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Opening paragraph USA-centric

In the opening paragraph USA policy is mentioned in what appears to be a passing comment initially, but is then used to segue the entire opening paragraph into a description of US policy on involuntary commitment. This information should be in the USA section and the opening paragraph written from a more global perspective. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.17.231.193 ( talk) 11:52, 19 July 2010 (UTC) reply

"Treatment of bipolar disorder" as a category?

how useful is this category? are there also categories "treatment of..." depression, schizophrenia, etc etc. How many treatment related categories should be added? and commitment is not treatment, it is forcibly immobilizing or controlling someone so "treatment" can be administered, I think. EME44 ( talk) 07:00, 9 September 2010 (UTC) reply

Civil confinement

Civil confinement should be merged here as very similar notion. Another related article is SVP laws, but that should stay separate and be expanded because it's a US-specific set of laws, which would bias this article towards the US too much, and the SVP laws article has great potential for expansion (lots of reliable and detailed sources in External links). Tijfo098 ( talk) 18:36, 20 October 2010 (UTC) reply

I don't think they should be merged because civil confinement would also bias the article towards the US too much. Trinitresque ( talk) 12:31, 12 July 2012 (UTC) reply
No action and no consensus. Have removed tag. LT910001 ( talk) 07:39, 8 November 2013 (UTC) reply

Witch Hunts

The parallel between detaining someone for mental illness and witch hunts should be noted, as already noted by others as can been seen around the web. In both cases you are detaining someone because you think there is something wrong with them, but you can not provide any proof. If the psychiatrist thinks you are mentally ill, you are mentally ill! The only hope for you, the patient, is to play a psychological game with the psychiatrist and hope you win.

Nowadays, if an officer wants to detain you and has nothing against you, or if someone you know has a grudge against you, he calls out witch, sorry, mentally ill (suicidal, a danger to others), and voilà, you can get detained for at least a couple of days. Compare this to witch hunts of the old. Even if you are "proved" to be "sane" and released after a couple of days, depending on your personality, you will never forget the humiliation of being treated like a criminal. As for the officer, or the person who knows you, they achieved their objective. They managed to humiliate you legally. If you are homeless, the issue goes far beyond humiliation, and ironically, this becomes the leading cause of your mental deterioration.

In short, the parallel between the two is the ability to detain someone without any proof of crime. -- 99.246.101.166 ( talk) 16:36, 23 December 2010 (UTC) reply


Language Matters

As a premiss, the subject of the article is of interest of many areas of knowledge ranging from Medicine, to Law, to Sociology, to Ethics etc.

The choice of the heading i.e. "Involuntary commitment" seems to accord a linguistic preference to legal definition.

I would wish to observe, however, that the subject matter of the article is by epistemological nature and by psychological research of a relational nature.

Thus the legal terminology leaves in the shadow the fact that in "involuntary commitment":

  • there is a term of the relation (the doctors, the court,..) which voluntarily commits a citizen to a specific course of experience
  • there is a term of the relation, the "patient", who is forced to a specific course of experience,

So there is a party willing to commit the other to compulsory hospitalisation (or treatment, or detention, or lobotomy, etc. as it may be the case)

There is another party forced into the action determined by other relevant agent(s)

On its face "Involuntary Commitment" is a very innocent expression.

I suspect it does not render justice to the brute reality of facts or to the true substance of the matter.

My suggestion is that an alternative heading should be considered. 92.41.29.213 ( talk) 09:18, 3 May 2011 (UTC) MauroUsai reply

We generally use whatever title the typical reliable source (like a newspaper) is using, no matter what we personally think of the title they happen to prefer for a given subject. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 22:52, 3 January 2012 (UTC) reply

payment?

Who pays for this in the US? In the UK it is free for anyone, even those who would not qualify for the NHS (for example, an American tourist returning from Africa and transiting London). Although emergency medical care is also free for everyone, once the patient is stabilized they need to start paying, but even compulsory outpatient psychiatric treatment is free in the UK 94.175.119.32 ( talk) 09:55, 16 October 2011 (UTC) reply

USA state-specific information

In this edit, somebody removed a few paragraphs about the involuntary commitment regimes in Arizona, Connecticut, Iowa, Michigan, Oregon, Nevada and Utah. I'll let others decide if that data is relevant enough for inclusion in this overview article. -- Anthonyhcole ( talk) 09:00, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply

introduction

Currently, this reads: "If civil commitment proceedings follow, the evaluation is presented in a formal court hearing where testimony and other evidence may also be submitted.[citation needed] The subject of the hearing is typically entitled to legal counsel and may challenge a commitment order through habeas corpus rules.[1]"

This may be accurate for certain American states but it's certainly not accurate for Canadian provinces. I'm in BC and there is no court hearing and patients aren't advised of their right to counsel. Patients are committed for an indeterminate length of time and then they have the option of appearing before the Review Board to try and negotiate their release. Could the article please state that regimes vary in different locations? E. Francesca Allan ( talk) 13:57, 29 June 2013 (UTC) reply

Migration

Many people who are considered insane have a desire to travel, immigrate, or emigrate to another location. Upon release, it becomes a shady proposition. Such folks might be intimidated into believing that migration to another State or Country would result in deportation, imprisonment, or litigation with no recourse. Worse, there can be the idea that involuntary commitment will "follow" folks into a new city or State, and that there is not the option to start from a clean reputation, only to sully that reputation by going elsewhere and exposing authorities to charges and realities that existed somewhere else. Is there anyone who can provide legal expertise on this matter? 173.14.238.114 ( talk) 07:24, 2 September 2015 (UTC) reply

Thomas Szasz

There is a link to Thomas Szasz on here. What about a section about his views of civil commitment? He was probably the loudest voice against civil commitment and psychiatric oppression. Michael Ten ( talk) 06:39, 16 August 2016 (UTC) reply

Two edits: Court ordes and citations

Hey, normally you can challenge stuff by adding citation needed tags but anyway. The citations (and sentence they were citing) are only true in the US, not other countries, I was in the process of finding where this could fit into the article (since I felt a discussion on the internaional variation in commitment standards did not fit in the lead).

Anyway, I'll do all the edits in one go and if you then look at the article and tell me - which bits are untrue or what you would like to be changed (or make the edits yourself... unless you want to completely remove the material in which case we might need more of a discussion).

-- Talpedia ( talk) 16:49, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply

@ Talpedia: The issue isn't "true" or "untrue". The issue is it must be cited. And if something is specific to one country, instead of removing the citation clarify in the text and leave the citation. Sundayclose ( talk) 16:55, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply
You know... some things are actually true, so you don't scare quotes. Dunno about "must be cited". I agree that this material is improved by the presence of a citation, and that international perceptions might lead it to be challenged so will add a relevant citations. As I have say, nay, 3 times, I will re add the citation to the body of the article but removed it because I felt the discussion was too long for the lead. -- Talpedia ( talk) 17:10, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply
@ Talpedia: WP:V: "any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed." You've edited for four years. I assumed you knew that. You may not agree with the policy, but you do have to follow it. If something is "too long for the lead", please move the citation to the appropriate place in the article instead of removing it. Sundayclose ( talk) 17:35, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply
BORING. I'm not going to do what you tell me no matter how many times you say "please" or wikilawyer at me or state facts about me or criticise me. My opinion will be based on what improves the article. Sure you can remove material if it is not cited... but you could wait a little while for it to be added rather than going all edit war. Anyway, as I have said for the 4th time now, I will move the material along with your citation to body of the article - nearly finished now -- Talpedia ( talk) 17:41, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply
@ Talpedia: I'm not saying "please". I'm telling you (not asking you) to follow Wikipedia's policies. Or we can take up this discussion at WP:ANI if you prefer. Sundayclose ( talk) 17:44, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply
Well... you don't really get to tell me what to do. We get to have a three edit war then try to seek consensus, then ask for others to help reach a consensus. So I guess I'll just ignore you telling me what to do but pay attention to any suggestion you have to improve the quality of the article. Feel free to refer me to WP:ANI if you like -- Talpedia ( talk) 17:52, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply
WP:EW: "The three-revert rule is a convenient limit for occasions when an edit war is happening fairly quickly, but it is not a definition of "edit warring", and it is perfectly possible to engage in an edit war without breaking the three-revert rule, or even coming close to doing so."
Do you think we are edit warring? I think you reverted my edit, I addressed some of your points, was addressing some others, before you reverted again, and am in the process of trying to address your current points (edit to be clear, feel free to refer me to WP:ANI if you like, though I'd prefer to produce an article that we are both happy with). -- Talpedia ( talk) 17:58, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply
@ Sundayclose: Okay, I think I've addressed most of your points. See what you think. -- Talpedia ( talk) 18:19, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply

Rates of violence with psychosis

I hope this isn't off topic or too wordy. I think it's difficult for readers to know what "more violent" means without some context, and I think presenting both the 1.3-1.8 figure or the 4-8 figure on their own would be to hide some controversy in the research.

-- Talpedia ( talk) 23:11, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
To merge the contents of Commitment (mental health) in Involuntary commitment; overlapping topics, with commitment usually being used to imply involuntary commitment; include a disambiguation method for Voluntary commitment (disambiguation page or hatnote). Klbrain ( talk) 05:37, 14 September 2021 (UTC) reply

I propose that we merge Commitment_(mental_health) into this article because they seem to cover the same topic. The other article is to do with the history of commitment and the history if its criticism, so an alternative would be to rename this article to the history. I have spoken about this topic on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Merging_of_commitment_with_involuntary_commitment, and wrote about it on Talk:Commitment_(mental_health) @ Fgnievinski: suggested that this page be merged into the other page. @ Ozzie10aaaa: expressed some doubts because both articles were quite long. @ Flyer22 Frozen: said she felt that in the event of a merge this page should remain citing WP:Common name. I agree because the other page is relatively new while this page has more of a history and more people watching the page. Flyer22 Frozen suggested pinging @ Sundayclose:. I have just added merger proposal banners to both talk pages now. Flyer22 has been helpful in pushing this forward. -- Talpedia ( talk) 16:03, 5 September 2020 (UTC) reply

Since there was some discussion about which page should be merged into which, I have not suggested a direction of merge in the banner. -- Talpedia ( talk) 16:11, 5 September 2020 (UTC) reply

Merge templates don't go on the article talk pages. They go on the articles. So I've fixed that. Started an RfC below, like I stated (at WP:Med) that I would. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 07:47, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply

=== RfC about merging an article with this one ===

Should the Commitment (mental health) article be merged into the Involuntary commitment article? Should it be vice versa? Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 07:47, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply

Survey

  • Comment: If talking about merging the Commitment (mental health) article into the Involuntary commitment article, I don't feel strongly about that. I can support that as long as the content fits and there is no unnecessary redundancy. If talking about vice versa -- merging the Involuntary commitment article into the Commitment (mental health) article, I oppose. Involuntary commitment is a WP:Notable topic. I don't see a solid argument for not allowing it to continue to be its own article just because of the history stuff in the Commitment (mental health) article. Commitment (mental health) is mainly a history article. I can't even state "half a history article and half a criticism article" since even the criticism section focuses on history. In that article's edit history, it's noted that this content was split from the Institutionalisation article. Rather than merging the Involuntary commitment article into the Commitment (mental health) article, some other route should be employed. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 07:47, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Comment: (n.b I initially proposed the merge and intended the merge to be *into* Involuntary commitment) I think a reader who found either page would expect the information on the other page to be contained in that page, so the existence of both pages might lead readers to not find what they wanted. Also, I suspect that overlapping and conflicting content might be added to both pages causing needless work both when adding content and later if the pages were merged. With that said, I think renaming Commitment to "History of Commitment" is a reasonable solution as well, since there is a probably enough information in to the world to support a history of commitment page. -- Talpedia ( talk) 09:49, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply
  • So, what about voluntary commitment? At first blush, I'm thinking merge to Commitment (mental health) and have a large section on involuntary.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:49, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply
    • @ SMcCandlish: The only problem with merging in that direction is that this page predates it (so has more history and is on people's watch lists). I guess this could be worked around with a merge followed by a move to change the name - I'm not that familiar with the behaviour of history and watchlists on move. Talpedia ( talk) 00:44, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
      • Merge into Commitment (mental health), with involuntary and voluntary as sections. Merging the "Commitment (mental health)" article into the "Involuntary commitment" one would make no sense at all, as the latter is a narrow subset of the former; it would be like merging Felidae into domestic cat. But it also doesn't make much sense to keep these pages separate, per WP:CFORK and WP:SPLIT / WP:SUMMARY: We do not need to divide a topic up into subarticles until the main article is approaching the WP:SIZE limit, and we need to not have redundant articles that substantially cover the same material but are diverging from each other. And "this page predates it (so has more history and is on people's watch lists)" is never any kind of merge prevention rationale, nor a criterion by which to determine final article title (see WP:AT and look for any mention of content age). History is not lost. If anyone really cares excessively much, it could be merged into this page, but as general "Commitment (mental health)" material, then round-robin moved by an admin or pagemover, to swap the names, taking watchlist entires along with the moves.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:32, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
        • Okay it seems like watchlist and history aren't an issue then. As I said before I'm happy with either direction of merge Talpedia ( talk) 15:22, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • No, involuntary commitment is different legally, requiring a court order or some official dispensation by which the liberty of the patient to leave is taken away and he is forced into the institution.-- Astral Leap ( talk) 08:39, 14 September 2020 (UTC) reply
  • No clearly two different subjects. Sachin.cba ( talk) 04:58, 25 September 2020 (UTC) reply
    • Hey. @ Sachin.cba: I'm seeing if I can create some consensus. Why do you think the subjects are difference, both are to do with being detained within a mental institution in my understanding. Talpedia ( talk) 00:44, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
      • They aren't different topics. One is a subset of the other that involves some different legalities. The fact that involuntary commitments can be converted to voluntary ones or more often vice versa (time-limited or indefinite) through additional court action and evidence (or even court-free emergency holds at medical discretion) make that pretty clear.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:32, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Merge Clearly a CONTENT FORK of Commitment (mental health), which this article should be merged into. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 04:42, 7 October 2020 (UTC) reply
    • @ GenQuest: The only concern I have about merging in that direction is that this page predates the page (see comment above). Talpedia ( talk) 00:44, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Merge ( Summoned by bot) into Commitment (mental health), any content which is about VOLUNTARY commitment can be dealt with in a sub-section. The involuntry kind is clearly the more common usage of the term. Pincrete ( talk) 17:21, 14 November 2020 (UTC) reply
    • @ Pincrete: I agree that commitment is the more common usage, but see above comment about history and watch lists. Talpedia ( talk) 00:44, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
      • That just isn't relevant (or at least not dispositive); see my !vote comment above.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:32, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Support - I support merging the two articles since they discuss essentially the same topic. [a] Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 21:46, 20 November 2020 (UTC)}} reply
  • If the articles are merged, it should stay at this title for natural disambiguation. ( t · c) buidhe 11:27, 25 November 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Merge commitment into invol. The reason I think they should merge is that the commitment article is mostly discussing the history of invol commitment. The reasons I give this direction: As described by others below, voluntary commitment is an oxymoron and attempting to put vol entirely within a commitment article seems strange. Voluntary admission also has different historical roots (imo), legalities, and reasonings for it to occur vs invol commitment. I think most people looking for commitment are looking for invol. Although, I would be happy with the commitment article being renamed to History of. (sidenote: its strange to me that history of commitment was removed from institutionalism) Xurizuri ( talk) 15:05, 17 December 2020 (UTC) reply
    Revisiting as I have some more reasoning. I feel that the two articles are a bit... empty. This one largely links to other articles, and the commitment one only describes history. It seems it would be useful to combine them, creating a involuntary landing page like you get for feminism, autism, Germany, etc. Direction of merge: the international coverage article is involuntary commitment internationally and keeping the naming similar would be preferable. Xurizuri ( talk) 08:17, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
    Or we need a broader international article. Since we have no international article on mental-health commitment generally, including voluntary, that is missing content, so the current intl. article situation is not a model to emulate, but a problem to fix. "[V]oluntary commitment is an oxymoron" is WP:OR subjective opinion, and when approached from an objective oxymoron-definition perspective, is actually incorrect. Even if it were not, it wouldn't matter, since the term is in use. WP does not rename things to suit editors' personal senses of logic. And this has nothing to do with a merge/move proposal anyway, since "Voluntary commitment" is not among the proposed article titles. Also, see WP:NOWORK, WP:NODEADLINE: lack of ideal levels of content development is not a rationale to fail to comply with various WP:P&G (MERGE/SPLIT/SUMMARY, etc.)  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:32, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
    yeah I'm backing down on the oxymoron part of my opinion, the component words have contradictory meanings but that doesn't mean the phrase itself isn't reasonable. Still getting used to the rules of WP and I'll rethink how they apply to my take on this, but for now I think at least a component of my final point is reasonable - these seem like content forks. -- Xurizuri ( talk) 09:00, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Notes

  1. ^ The Oxford English Dictionary: commitment, n. 1. a. (a) The action or an act of placing a person in custody or confinement, esp. as a punishment or while awaiting trial; committal to a place of incarceration, correction, etc.; imprisonment, detention. (first use: 1579   J. Jones Arte preseruing Bodie & Soule iii. xxxi. 62  "An order of commitment for meane felows and suche Roags.") (b) The action of placing a person in an institution (now esp. a psychiatric hospital) for care or treatment; esp. the action of causing a person to be compulsorily detained in such an institution. Also: the state of being so detained; the period of detention. (first use: 1826   Papers & Corr. 26 68  "The governor has..authority..to give orders and directions for preparing grants for the custody or commitment of lunatics.")

Discussion

I've alerted I will alert the WikiProjects this talk page is tagged with. As noted above, WP:Med is already aware of this discussion; so there was no need to alert them to this RfC. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 07:47, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply

I see that WP:PSYCHOLOGY was already alerted to this RfC. That WikiProject is barely active, though. It can be described as inactive, not just semi-inactive. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 07:57, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply

Unfortunately true Flyer22. I don't know if other WP:PSYCH folks would agree, but I rarely hear anything from the project. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 18:09, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply
I notify moribund projects anyway; just because their talk pages and other processes are stalled doesn't mean people don't watchlist them. As our editorial pool shrinks and our content grows, there is less and less time for chitter-chatter on wikiproject pages (which is probably a good things for WP:NOT#FORUM and WP:HERE and WP:NOT#SOCIAL and WP:CONLEVEL reasons), but people don't suddenly lose interest in their favorite topics. :-)  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:52, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply

Please see WP:RFCNOT. There is an agreed process for proposed merges. -- Redrose64 🌹 ( talk) 20:55, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply

Hey @ Redrose64:, I admit to not being familiar with wikipedia processeses (though try to be familiar with it's policies!). I think we've followed step 1 and 2 on that the process, and are currently on step 3. Flyer22 suggested we set up an RFC ("since articles are often stuck with merge tags for a long time" Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Merging_of_commitment_with_involuntary_commitment). Sounds like a procedural issue that I'm not qualified to comment on! Talpedia ( talk) 21:17, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply
Should still have merge tags and otherwise follow the WP:PM process, though there is nothing wrong with making the required discussion, of that process, be an RfC (it's often helpful, in fact).  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:49, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply
Redrose64, I do not need to see WP:RFCNOT. I was already aware of what WP:RFCNOT states. But is not a policy or guideline. Even so, WP:Ignore all rules applies in this case. It is well known that merge proposals, especially on pages that don't get much traction, can remain unresolved for months or years. Like Talpedia quoted me as stating, "articles are often stuck with merge tags for a long time." And   SMcCandlish just stated that "there is nothing wrong with making the required discussion, of that process, be an RfC (it's often helpful, in fact)." So unless you have a more solid reason for this discussion not being an RfC, I will turn it into an RfC again. I might even visit the RfC page and propose that we revisit the WP:RFCNOT criteria. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 08:35, 7 September 2020 (UTC) reply
I also remind you of WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 08:39, 7 September 2020 (UTC) reply
Appropriate use of {{ merge}} (or similar templates) will put the article into Category:Articles to be merged from September 2020 (or similar) and Category:All articles to be merged. An {{ rfc}} tag will not categorise either by reason (in this case, merge) or by date; besides which there have been too many recent cases where {{ rfc}} has been used inappropriately, often for very minor matters. This is why we have WP:RFCST WP:RFCBEFORE and WP:RFCNOT.
If an ongoing merge discussion drags on for some weeks with no clear consensus, or becomes completely deadlocked, opening up an RfC may indeed be a way out. But it is way over the top to go for RfC after less than 16 hours and no comments other than those of the proposer. -- Redrose64 🌹 ( talk) 09:21, 7 September 2020 (UTC) reply
Redrose64, I am a very experienced Wikipedian. I do not need an editor telling me anything about how Wikipedia works, just like I don't need an editor unnecessarily tinkering with RfCs I start, especially when it will stifle discussion. I assessed the situation and knew what was best in this case. I again remind you of WP:Ignore all rules and WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY. So unless you plan to take me to WP:ANI for doing what is best in a case like this, this discussion will be an RfC again. Let me know now if you plan to WP:Edit war on this. There still may not be much traction with the RfC, but the discussion has a better chance of achieving consensus if it's an RfC. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 09:31, 7 September 2020 (UTC) reply
If you are "a very experienced Wikipedian" (and with a first edit on 5 May 2007, you have exactly two years more experience than me) you should know by now that RfC - just like ANI - is not a process of first resort. You will also be aware that if you reinstate the {{ rfc}} without a very good reason, it is you who has begun to EW. -- Redrose64 🌹 ( talk) 11:41, 7 September 2020 (UTC) reply
Your opinions on RfCs and ANI are flawed. An RfC can validly be the first resort, and has been validly the first resort in various cases. And ANI is very often the first resort with no issue, which you would know if you had to deal with as many problematic editors as I do. I deal with them daily. And I report them to a WP:CheckUser, or at WP:AIV, or at WP:ANI, as needed. WP:NOTHERE blocks are common. We do not waste time talking to disruptive editors who clearly are not here to build an encyclopedia or who have severe WP:Competence issues. No, we report those "editors" at WP:ANI. Furthermore, this merge discussion was had at WP:Med first, without much input. And any significantly experienced editor with two eyes could see that bringing the matter to either this talk page or to the Commitment (mental health) talk page would not bring about much traction either, which is what I meant by assessing the situation and seeing that starting an RfC in this case would be (is) a good idea. I never stated that you would immediately take me to ANI, which is why I mentioned edit warring. I was clear that you should let me know if you were going to edit war. That way, I would know if I should expect this to go to ANI. I would know if I should expect to take it to ANI. Also, reverting once (like you reverted my RfC template) is usually not considered edit warring. Otherwise, reverting an editor once and then taking the matter to the talk page would not be presented as a normal and acceptable way of editing at WP:Bold and WP:BRD. It would mean that reverting even even once is an issue. And, well, except for WP:1RR WP:0RR, or cases where the one revert is a clear issue (such as a WP:BLP issue), or cases involving those who employ a revert only when necessary attitude, it's not.
Thank you, Sundayclose, for reinstating the RfC. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 06:37, 8 September 2020 (UTC) Tweaked post. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 07:40, 8 September 2020 (UTC) reply

Question( Summoned by bot), what I don't understand is how (voluntary) commitment is different from simply obtaining treatment for a mental condition. In the UK, 'being committed' refers usually to enforced treatment, but what do the voluntary and enforced commitment have in common ? Is it simply attendance at a place offering treatment for mental health? Pincrete ( talk) 09:11, 22 September 2020 (UTC) reply

The term "commitment" is largely an outdated term, but it is still used (usually for involuntary) primarily because it has been so strongly ingrained in the psychiatric lexicon. The more updated term is simply hospitalization or inpatient, which can be voluntary or involuntary. To answer your question, there is no difference between what is awkwadly referred to as "voluntary commitment" and voluntary hospitalization. Sundayclose ( talk) 00:39, 23 September 2020 (UTC) reply
Good point Sundayclose. The terms I hear these days are "voluntary admission" or, as you wrote, "voluntary hospitalization". "Voluntary commitment" is a contradiction in terms. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 21:53, 20 November 2020 (UTC) reply
Except it's not, but our article material can get into that when better developed. I agree the terms are rather dated, but the implications are not identical. Voluntary treatment or hospitalization (a.k.a. inpatient treatment) is a very general term (often not connected to mental health), while voluntary commitment generally involves contractual agreements, like medium- to long-term financial arrangements, written commitment to completion of a program/regimen with failure having penalties like forfeiture of fees for remaining treatment, no re-admittance to an abandoned program at that institution, or more conditional and restrictive re-admittance, plus possible legal repercussions (e.g. the treatment may have been court-ordered and failure to complete it without rapidly finding replacement and legally equivalent treatment might result in a jail term), etc., etc.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:40, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
That's genuinely very interesting SMcCandlish! I don't have a lot of experience with the voluntary commitment aspect as you've described, even though I have a pretty strong knowledge of the laws/systems for commitment where I am (possibly it doesn't happen here but honestly who knows). It would be great to have a section explaining the different implications. -- Xurizuri ( talk) 08:36, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply
The legal stuff will mostly come up in relation to repeat-offender drug offenses, aggravated drunk-driving, suicide threats/attempts, etc., at least over here in the US. There's also stuff that pertains to minors but not adults (e.g. a child showing violent or depressive/suicidal tendencies might be "voluntarily" committed for a month or more of observation and therapy – voluntarily on the part of the parents, not the child.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:20, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Is it relevant to this discussion that there's also articles on voluntary commitment and on outpatient commitment? I think the voluntary one at least is. There's also an article involuntary treatment, but that's for any medical involuntary treatment so that one at least isn't a complication. -- Xurizuri ( talk) 10:14, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Definitely cause for some cross-referencing, at least.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:20, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
On the question of the disambiguation method, WP:TWODAB suggests the use of hatnotes, as it seems clear from the discussion about that the primary topic of commitment is involuntary commitment. So, I've set those for now, but won't object if others prefer a different structure (DAB page was suggested during the discussion). Klbrain ( talk) 05:37, 14 September 2021 (UTC) reply

Relevance of link to Sexually violent predator laws

Hey User:Sundayclose. I think this link might be more relevant than it at first seems from the name: this page discusses a form of indefinite outpatient commitment based on mental health rather than through the legal system. c.f.

"(1) That the person has been convicted of a sexually violent offense (a term that is defined applicable statutes) (2) That the person suffers from a mental abnormality and/or personality disorder, which causes him/her serious difficulty controlling his/her sexually violent behavior. (3) That this mental abnormality and/or personality disorder makes the person likely to engage in predatory acts of sexual violence if not confined in a secure facility."

I don't know if the page needs a better title. Talpedia ( talk) 00:33, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply

The page is named that because that's what the laws themselves are called. But I think that a link to it from this page should use a different name or explain why it's linked, eg involuntary commitment laws for sexual violence. I agree that it is definitely relevant to this article, the laws are specifically about involuntary commitment of sexually violent predators -- Xurizuri ( talk) 08:30, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply
That seems like good solution. I've added a sentence describing this to the lead (there doesn't seem to be a natural place in the body of the article) Talpedia ( talk) 14:22, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply
Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Involuntary_commitment&oldid=1207145966"
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Totalitarian countries

I added the POV tag as the entire section seemed to radiate the tell-a-tale signs of it.

My issues:

  • The evil/benevolent/whatever nature of a totalitarian system if for the reader to decide.
  • Non-totalitarian systems have also sent people to the happy house for "homosexuality and adultery". The totalitarian systems of the world are not the only systems who've been total bastards to their citizenry in the name of "mental health".

Anyone have any feedback before I edit? - Brother Dave Thompson 23:57, 5 August 2007 (UTC) reply

The DSM described homosexuality as a mental disorder. Isn't that an American publication? Who's to decide what is and isn't totalitarian? My suggestion. Change the header to "other countries". I put in a {{ cite}} tag for the paragraph on the Soviet Union. If someone is willing to find some solid evidence that this is true they should do so otherwise it will get removed in a few months. Mundilfari ( talk) 08:37, 24 November 2009 (UTC) reply

You can not compare the issue of "homosexuality and adultery" to the issue of the so called "mental illness". When it comes to "homosexuality and adultery" it is an issue of civilization, and a civilized person keeps his head between his shoulders, not between his legs; some people simply have higher standards. Just look at the divorce rates and the lives of men and women in the countries that allow such rubbish. Women there live like toilets, from one man to the next (ofcourse every temporary period with a man is called love untill they "break" their relation). Anyways, it is an issue of values and tangible crime. Of course, calling homosexuality or adultery a "mental illness" is absolute rubbish. The issue of mental health on the other hand, is one where an officer can just detain you without breaking any law. When all else fails, when you have nothing against him, call him a witch or, as the "civilized people" put it, "mentally ill". This is incredible power that goes against our very nature; some complete stranger can threaten your freedom because he decided he can help you! He can not tell you what is your crime, all he says I am here to help you. If you fight back, it is a crime. If you run, it is a crime! This is very serious, and mostly serious to the homeless. -- 99.246.101.166 ( talk) 16:49, 23 December 2010 (UTC) reply

Another thing I would like to point out in case it was not understood from what I previously wrote, is that with homosexuality and adultery, regardless of your views on them, you can provide real evidence whether they happened or not. A witness, a blood test, etc. With "mental illness" you can not. There is simply no objective proof that you are mentally ill. -- 99.246.101.166 ( talk) 16:49, 23 December 2010 (UTC) reply

Whether you personally believe homosexual or adulterous behaviour to be morally right-or-wrong, they are acts which require a purposeful decision to act upon urges -- just like stealing money or baking a cake. Mental illness is involuntary and cannot be compared in such a simple manner. To counter your second claim of objectitivity: when somebody tries, for no reasonable purpose, to smash their head through a glass window in front of witnesses & CCTV, that's fairly objective proof of a mental health issue. Although many societies abuse the term "mentally ill" in order to punish political refuseniks or homosexuals, this does not change the fundamental requirement within any society to detain some people for their own safety or for the safety of others, if they are unable to control their behaviour. Mrstonky ( talk) 18:56, 1 January 2012 (UTC) reply
Mental illness is NOT involuntary ( a double negative) . You claim "bad" behaviour to be involuntary, like a thief says he didn't steal the bread for his feeling of hunger. Whose fingers closed, whose hand took (stole) the money? Whose feet and legs ran away? People have freewill to chose to be "bad" or "good". To starve or to steal is a choice. Unable to control one owns behaviour is a fiction of the Elite.-- Mark v1.0 ( talk) 13:37, 17 March 2012 (UTC) reply
Well I wouldn't completely reject the concept of uncontrollable behavior, sometimes I want to do some work but cannot. However, You've got a good point, it does not make sense for behavior caused by mental illness to be called "involuntary". Sure, not every insane person said "I want to be insane", but voluntarism is defined and decisions produced by a person's own thoughts regardless of how rational the thoughts are. You can't say that every smart person who walks across a bridge did so because he or she is willing, while all dumb people who walk across a bridge were forced to do so by their dumbness against their will. 173.180.202.22 ( talk) 04:25, 27 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Boyer’s suggestions

The contents of this article have been dealt with in a much more informative, neutral, and coherent manner in Involuntary commitment. I would advise that this article needed cleaning up, but the article itself is unnecessary. Therefore, I recommend that it be deleted in its entirety. IronDuke 22:24, 4 November 2005 (UTC) reply

What are you talking about? This is the talk page for that article! -- Daniel C. Boyer 17:26, 5 November 2005 (UTC) reply
I suspect IronDuke probably came here, as I did, via a "Discuss" link on a mergeto tag on some other page, such as Psychiatric imprisonment. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:55, 21 January 2006 (UTC) reply

Added mention of controversy (from a civil-liberties perspective) over civil commitment.

Daniel C. Boyer

Added more text. One needs to make a distinction between psychiatric commitment and civil commitment. People have been arguing about psychiatric commitment since the 1960's, and that issue is well argued. Civil commitment for sex offenders is something entirely new.

Added mention of Lawerence Stevens as exception to "few would argue that under no circumstances should a psychiatric patient be held against their will".

Daniel C. Boyer

Added mention of ordering people to take psychiatric medication as an alternative to involuntary commitment and a cause for the decreased incidence of involuntary commitment.

Daniel C. Boyer

Added link to Lawrence Stevens article.

Daniel C. Boyer

Added parenthetical mention of "mad liberation."

Daniel C. Boyer

Added mention of nearly-synonymous "mental hygiene" laws.

Daniel C. Boyer

The "danger to self or others" standard of the Baker Act (paralleled in many other mental hygiene laws) is supposed to be protective of the civil liberties of those who might be wrongly committed, which is ridiculous as it is hardly a bright-line test and is indeed one of nearly infinitely open-ended ambiguity. The test is based on the assumption that it will be used in a certain way, but facially almost every individual could be called a "danger to self or others." Judge Watchler has pointed out (and I maintain this is putting it mildly) that "dangerousness" is "open to various interpretations" (Mtr. of Torsney, 47 N.Y. 2d 667, 686-87 (Ct. App. 1979)(Wachtler, J., dissenting).

Daniel C. Boyer

Might the mention of the Stevens article on suicide be better placed under the article on suicide? What is its relevance to this?

Daniel C. Boyer

I am concerned that the passage relating to the 1960s ("the involuntary commitment were lax and this led to a number of horror stories of people with no mental illness being trapped in an institution") might lead readers to believe this does not occur today when it can and does. Could this be reworked to relieve this possible misimpression?

Daniel C. Boyer

See here for a possible criticism of involuntary commitment. -- Daniel C. Boyer

How can criticism of involuntary commitment by believers in the theory of reality enforcement be mentioned in this article (what is the best NPOV way to do this)? -- Daniel C. Boyer

"It is typically used against patients with mental illness, particularly schizophrenia."

This begs the questions: Are people wrongly committed, even accidentally or on purpose? This needs to be more clearly explained to allow for the possibility that people who have no mental illness are wrongly committed. This has a pro-involuntary-commitment bias. -- Daniel C. Boyer

"Unfortunately, community care facilities were in general not well-funded, and this resulted in many mental patients left to fend for themselves." This is not NPOV. Perhaps this should be rewritten to indicate that the flaw in the theory, when put into practice, was that "community care facilities were in general not well-funded" rather than using the word "unfortunately". -- Daniel C. Boyer

This entire article is U.S.-centric and revisions should be made to it to make it less so. -- Daniel C. Boyer 14:16 Oct 2, 2002 (UTC)

The practice of involuntary commitment does not necessarily violate the First Amendment (see anti-psychiatry), but it might. -- Daniel C. Boyer

I am puzzled by commitment of persons suffering from dementia (senile aswell as pre-senile) isn't focused in the article. That ought to be a pretty large group, also in USA. -- Johan Magnus 01:08 19 May 2003 (UTC)

State law varies as to whether people can be committed for reasons that are not, stricta sensu, "mental illness" (if you believe in such a thing or if such a thing exists); for instance, Michigan law specificially excludes the involuntary commitment of epileptics, drug addicts and alcoholics unless they otherwise qualify under the statute. This is going to be a very complicated subject if we include it in this article, although I think someone should make a start on this. -- Daniel C. Boyer 18:03 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Criticism that this article is U.S.-centric (with which I strongly agree) should be solved by adding info on the situation in other countries. -- Daniel C. Boyer 21:37, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)

"Gravely disabled" standard

Should this be mentioned and if so how should it be approached? -- Daniel C. Boyer 19:18, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have made a beginning on this standard but am conscious that it may be placed in the wrong area. Any help with this would be appreciated. -- Daniel C. Boyer 15:42, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Halfway house

How in this article should the subject of halfway houses be dealt with? -- Daniel C. Boyer 19:53, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Structure and some points

This article currently has no headings in the body of the text. These need to be inserted. As a psychiatrist reading this I find no mention of WHY psychiatrist use involuntary commitment. The article has a creeping POV that seems to imply that involuntary commitment is necessarily bad.

Involuntary commitment is the practice of using legal means or forms to commit a person to a mental hospital, insane asylum or psychiatric ward against the will or over the protests of that person.

No mention is made of it being used in the absence of informed consent or the inability to obtain informed consent because of psychotic thinking. For instance, a severely depressed person may passively accept hospitalisation but be incapable of giving informed consent due to psychomotor retardation.

I would strongly support mention of this if it is recognized that this itself is a POV and prefaced accordingly. -- Daniel C. Boyer 16:04, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Involuntary commitment is typically used against people diagnosed with ... [my stress]

What is wrong with the word "for" instead of "against". Does "against" have a special legal meaning in this context?

The commitment hearing or hearing protesting commitment is going to be adversarial, given the nature of the U.S. legal system, with the person wishing to avoid involuntary commitment or be freed from involuntary commitment (and his lawyer) attempting to get that result, and the prosecutor (supported, probably, by a psychiatrist or psychiatrists) attempting to get the individual committed or to continue being hospitalized. If the hearing was not goint to be adversarial, the individual would opt for voluntary commitment. Some psychiatrists and others may argue that commitment hearings should take a different form, or argue that they are acting in the best interests of the individual who has been or is potentially going to be involuntarily committed, and this should by all means be mentioned in the article, but it does not detract from the use of the word "against" being appropriate in this context as it adequately reflects the adversarial nature of the proceedings. -- Daniel C. Boyer 16:04, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, I did think that there might be a special legal reason for its use. -- CloudSurfer 18:12, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Though few would argue that under no circumstances should a psychiatric patient be held against his will, ...

This would be clearer as, "Most people would agree that there are circumstances when some psychiatric patients should be held without their consent, ..."

Maybe, but it would have to be tweaked as the passage as it reads now goes on to state exceptions. I would have no problem with this as long as the grammar is edited accordingly. -- Daniel C. Boyer 16:04, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The exeptions would still follow this statement as they remain exceptions to the "Most people would agree" statement. -- CloudSurfer 18:12, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I have not read the E. Fuller Torrey quote before. Wouldn't it be better to say WHY he said this? I suspect it is because the current laws he was talking about are too restrictive and require violence or danger before a person who needs treatment but refuses it can be treated involuntarily.-- CloudSurfer 22:48, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I should introduce where I am coming from. As an Australian psychiatrist I am completely unfamiliar with what such a court hearing would be like. Australian law allows for involuntary treatment without a court hearing but has several levels of checks and balances including a required hearing on request or after a specified time. A lawer is one of the three on the panel of such hearings. Thus there is no adversarial process at all as any legal hearing is more on the inquisitorial model, or whatever the legal term is. I do not think that the mental state of a severely depressed person or, perhaps more extremely, a person with catatonia is really POV. Anyone who observes them will see that they do not respond to questions in a meaningful way. In catatonia there is no response at all. In severe depression there may, perhaps after some minutes, be a mumbled response but that can be the extent of it. Neither is "fit to plead". I am not suggesting that these categories are the majority of people treated involuntarily. The next issue is informed consent and I agree that this is potentially POV but to what extent. If a person is psychotic then the psychosis can lead them to be incapable of understanding the nature of the issues at hand. If they are responding to voices telling them that everyone around them is part of a alien plot to incarcerate and torture them and they have accompanying delusions that fit with this then is it then POV to say they cannot give "informed consent" in the legal meaning of that term?
By the way, this does point to an issue that the article should be divided up into jurisdictions that require initial legal hearings and those that do not. -- CloudSurfer 18:06, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Yes, it would be quite good if this were done, and this page needs to become less U.S.-centric. Any info you could include on the situation in Australia would be most helpful. -- Daniel C. Boyer 19:38, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"classic paper"

I presume you have removed the word "classic" from the description of Rosenhan's paper on POV grounds but I think it should be reinstated. Many papers are produced only to be read and forgotten. Some achieve the standard of being referenced many times and some achieve even more significance. These papers become seminal works that are read, referenced and respected as major achievements in the field. The contents of these papers are taught to all students of the field. This is what is usually understood by the term "classic paper", or at least in my experience. The qualifier "classic" thus imparts information and without this qualifier the impact of this paper on the field of psychiatry is less obvious. For instance, the title of the paper was in my memory when I wrote this section. I was then able to look it up on the internet and found 906 references on Google. By comparison "Outcome of schizophrenia: some transcultural observations with particular reference to developing countries" returns 146 sites. This is not a classic paper but falls into the middle of the groups I have mentioned. The main article on the Rosenhan experiment states, "The study is considered an important and influential criticism of psychiatric diagnosis." The SOED's first defintion for classic is "Of the first rank or authority; standard, leading." That is the meaning I intended. -- CloudSurfer 07:40, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

CCHR

How should the controversial CCHR (with its connexion to Scientology) be brought up in this article? -- Daniel C.Boyer 18:54, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

My view is with a link that goes to an article that gives a background of the controversy. I know somewhere else there is a direct link to their site which might mean that unsuspecting people might take it at face value. I think if people have read the Scientology stuff then they can judge for themselves. -- CloudSurfer 22:44, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)
This would be good. -- Daniel C. Boyer 20:26, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Protests

Is it true that Anyone may begin the commitment process by filing with the probate court an application alleging that someone has psychiatric disabilities and is dangerous to himself or others or gravely disabled. ? [1] Has anyone tried to use this to say that a politician (ie Bush) was insane by this method? You could propably prove that he is "Dangerous to himself or others "-- Guthrie 17:23, 7 October 2005 (UTC) reply

I would be quite interested in use of this as a protest and the results of any research into this. -- Daniel C. Boyer 19:28, 10 October 2005 (UTC) reply

It is my belief that it is absolutely an indication of the horrific situation those involuntarily committed find themselves in if CCHR is the main practical source of the securing of any rights they are supposed to have, which evidently it may be in some major way. The Church of Scientology has its own skeletons of forced commitment of people using their own so called mental health treatment with sometimes deadly results. Beyond that the extreme position of an organization that thinks it is the answer to everyone's issues renders their participation less credible. But if they get a patient out from a situation in which rights of all kinds are in practice denied and the length of stay in such places is arbitrarily extended as it often is, it rightfully earns some respect for what it does. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.156.228.245 ( talk) 23:35, 25 July 2010 (UTC) reply

Suggest merge with involuntary treatment

The topics on involuntary treatment are covered on this page; perhaps a merger? Andrew73 14:40, 27 December 2005 (UTC) reply

That may not work, since 'involuntary commitment' infers legal means have been used to enforce commitment or coerce compliance with psychotropic drug prescription regimes, whereas involuntary 'treatment' (a euphemistic term for methods that generally inflict mild to severe brain damage) often begins with forced drugging during a 72 hour hold, even before legal proceedings begin. Even without a court order, prior to release from a ward, patients may be subjected to long lasting injections (e.g., haloperidol). Ombudsman 04:33, 28 December 2005 (UTC) reply

Certainly in British Columbia patients can be treated involuntarily without a court proceeding. Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 04:56, 28 December 2005 (UTC) reply

The same holds true in the United States. In emergency situations, combative or pscyhotic patients are treated with neuroleptics like haloperidol in order to stabilize the patient and permit care. This may be viewed as "forced drugging," though this term seems a bit extreme as well; I doubt that short term exposure to these drugs causes permanent damage (aside from the risk of neuroleptic malignant syndrome). Andrew73 13:18, 28 December 2005 (UTC) reply
I think re: the use of the term "forced drugging" whether or not "short term exposure to these drugs causes permanent damage" is irrelevant. The use of these drugs may be beneficial or may be harmful (or a combination of the two), but it is certainly "forced," and is certainly "drugging". I think the only possible criticism of this phrase is the negative connotation, but I don't think there can be any doubt that it is accurate. -- Daniel C. Boyer 17:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC) reply

In many cases, "combative" patients are just trying to prevent psychiatric assault. Resistance is considered assault. And it's not only emergency situations -- such "treatment" can go on for months without a court proceeding. Being jumped by guards, thrown on the floor and injected is the very definition of forced drugging. I can't imagine wanting to dress it up as anything else. Once you're incarcerated on a psych ward, it's up to you to prove yourself sane. It's the complete opposite of the way it works in the criminal justice system. Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 15:54, 28 December 2005 (UTC) reply

At the same time, "combative" patients may be posing a physical threat to themselves and or other individuals. "Forced drugging" in this situation, on an emergent, short-term basis is justifiable. Long term involuntary commitment/treatment, at least in the state where I work, is regulated and cannot be done arbitrarily. Andrew73 17:12, 28 December 2005 (UTC) reply

Really? What if the only source of the "combat" is that the patient very much doesn't want to be treated? Is slamming people onto the floor and injecting them with neuroleptics still okay? Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 02:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC) reply

I was referring more specifically to patients who pose a danger to themselves or other individuals; not a harmdless individual who was only refusing treatment. Andrew73 02:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC) reply

The trouble is that it's impossible to correctly judge who poses a danger. And the standard of what constitutes danger varies wildly. "Only refusing treatment" gets many people locked up. Psychiatric treatment, especially in emergency situtations, is brutal and tends to escalate violence. We wouldn't allow convicted felons to be treated as poorly as we treat mental patients. Forced drugging is NEVER justifiable. It's a human rights violation that's got to stop. Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 03:13, 29 December 2005 (UTC) reply

I Oppose the merger as the two articles describe separate things. It is possible (although not necessarily legal) to be involuntarily detained/committed without being treated and involuntarily treated without being detained. The latter possibility is currently being discussed in the UK in revision of the Mental Health Act. The discussion above about the issue of human rights and involuntary treatment I believe qualifies this article for inclusion in category:medical ethics. -- Vincej 05:59, 30 December 2005 (UTC) reply

Of course the two articles need to be combined. Contrary to the remarks of Vincej, commitment does not necessarily mean detainment. One can be committed for involuntary treatment without being detained (see Assisted Outpatient Commitment) This is just another article in which fringe antipsychiatry advocates and Scientologists will ply their wares. I will keep an on eye on the site and eliminate the nonsense POV until it is inevitably merged.-- 24.55.228.56 16:04, 30 December 2005 (UTC) reply

Actually, 24.55, perhaps you should try reading Vince's comments again as you appear to have completely misunderstood what he was saying. Any reason you must be so offensive? I support human rights in psychiatry. I am not a "fringe antipsychiatry advocate" nor a "scientologist" nor am I "plying any wares." Contrary to your self-serving delusion, you haven't been "eliminating nonsense POV" but just offensively and anonymously reverting various editors' useful input. Your edits are just as POV as the ones you attempt to "correct." As is evidenced on your talk page, your conduct has not gone unnoticed by wiki admin. Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 02:51, 31 December 2005 (UTC) reply

"[T]here’s no question that MindFreedom Support Coalition International is on the fringe of psychiatric-reform advocacy." - The Boston Phoenix [2] -- 24.55.228.56 04:39, 31 December 2005 (UTC) reply

If you read it, then it must be true. Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 04:42, 31 December 2005 (UTC) reply

And now let's have that quote in its context:

"That said, there’s no question that MindFreedom Support Coalition International is on the fringe of psychiatric-reform advocacy. Toby Fisher of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), in Massachusetts, declines to comment specifically on the group. "I don’t know much about them," he says." - The Boston Phoenix [3]

So, 24.55, you're as dishonest as you are offensive. What a sweet moment! 24.55 hoist by his own petard! Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 04:43, 31 December 2005 (UTC) reply

Just like I said, MindFreedom is fringe. Fringe and obscure. Thanks for the cite and happy new year!-- 24.55.228.56 19:08, 1 January 2006 (UTC) reply

Once again, 24.55, you manage to completely miss the point. The article claims that MindFreedom is on the "fringe" but says nothing in support of that assertion. Indeed, NAMI's spokesperson can't either. MindFreedom is not an obscure group. They have consultative roster status with the United Nations. Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 01:51, 2 January 2006 (UTC) reply

Having read the article on Assisted Outpatient Commitment it seems to me that Outpatient Commitment is not the same as Involuntary Commitment and would fit better with the concept of Involuntary Treatment. However, these terms are unfamiliar to me as I am from the UK. May I suggest that we use terms that are more internationally understood to demonstrate these distinct concepts. -- Vincej 09:04, 31 December 2005 (UTC) reply

Vincej, I agree. Outpatient commitment is just one form of many forms of involuntary treatment. Please elaborate on international terminology. It would be great if everybody knew what we were talking about. Francesca Allan of MindFreedomBC 16:58, 31 December 2005 (UTC) reply

I would propose that the term psychiatric detention would be more widely understood than involuntary commitment. Perhaps once the merger request is resolved a renaming of the page could be considered. -- Vincej 18:17, 11 January 2006 (UTC) reply
I disagree. I think just about everyone knows, or could figure out, what both these phrases mean. -- Daniel C. Boyer 01:27, 23 January 2006 (UTC) reply

Addington v Texas

Is this 1979 Supreme Court decision still relevant? If so, I think it should be cited in the article. Apokrif 16:41, 2 April 2006 (UTC) reply

Merge article soon

If no objections I’ll merge the article not with Involuntary treatment, but with Psychiatric imprisonment. — Cesar Tort 22:18, 18 June 2006 (UTC) reply

Merged

I have merged an edited article of Psychiatric Imprisonment into the new section “Totalitarian countries” [4] and also did some minor copyedits in main article. Since it’s a longer article now it ought not be merged with Involuntary treatment. — Cesar Tort 03:24, 21 June 2006 (UTC) reply

As someone who has been involuntarily committed numerous times, I agree with this terminology being in practice synonymous with the prior one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.156.228.245 ( talk) 23:28, 25 July 2010 (UTC) reply

Also known as electrochock

Since electroconvulsive therapy is the mainstream term of use and since 'electroshock'

  • is Ambiguous on wether it's about using electricity to induce a state of shock or just using an electric shock,
  • does not describe the intents and purposes of the procedure,
  • is not the mainstream term of use, but rather a derogatory term used by a very small minority group and
  • Electroconvulsive_therapy is just a side note of this article

I have removed the 'also known as electroshock' part of the text under Treatment of illness

-- Sinus 14:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC) reply

Hello Sinus, you indicated that electroshock "does not describe the intents and purposes of the procedure".

The problem is that "electroconvulsive therapy" indicates the procedure as a "therapy" which from its ancient greek roots "therapeuo" means "cure"

I do appreciate that you refferred to the "neutral point of view...", nonetheless, the question whether

-the procedure is used to cure, to reinstate the health of patients, or

-to shock the patient in order to handle s/he according to medical goals (which in the cases in question try to balance between the interests of the patient and those of the community)

which I suspect is a legitimate question, would be better left open using the term "electroshock"

I may be wrong but I feel that reinstating 'also known as electroshock' would better mirror the duplicity of goals sought by the "therapy".

Criticism and contrary viewpoints welcome. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MauroUsai ( talk • contribs) 08:21, 3 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Identical to about.com experts page?

I hope you will forgive me if I'm missing something obvious, but I was looking up involuntary commitment laws and came across both this article, and an article at About.com's "Ask the Experts" site, and aside from maybe some paragraph shuffling, they seem to be verbatim copies of each other. I'm wondering how that can be possible without someone either plagarizing Wikipedia or violating Wikipedia's terms. The about.com page is at: http://experts.about.com/e/i/in/involuntary_commitment.htm

Maybe it's nothing, but it seemed odd to me so I felt I should mention it. If this has been explained before I apologize for wasting bandwidth. If it is as odd as it seems to me, I'm curious to see what the verdict is.

MadRabbit 10:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC) reply

It looks like they are copying the text from Wikipedia. Chupper 03:18, 31 July 2007 (UTC) reply


At the bottom of the page it states, "This is the "GNU Free Documentation License" reference article from the English Wikipedia", with a direct link to the article on Wikipedia, which means it satisfies Wikipedia's copyright requirements. -- RoscoWolf ( talk) 15:13, 22 February 2008 (UTC) reply

This article seems POV

It presents the point of view that involuntary commitment is bad. In reality, it is very hard (at least in the U.S.) to involuntarily commit someone. As a result, the large homeless population is composed of many mentally ill persons. I believe both points of view should be presented. -- Mattisse 22:22, 30 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I would disagree with you , in Virginia they have over an 91% commitment rate. Virginia Citizens With Psychiatric Labels Under Siege-- Mark v1.0 02:03, 14 October 2007 (UTC) reply
I would also argue that the homeless population is from a lack of [ Affordable_housing]rather than lab-test-undetectable mental illness-- Mark v1.0 02:13, 14 October 2007 (UTC) reply

Netherlands

The way current section is written, it sounds like there is a public disagreement about the TBS-system. As a resident, I do not recognize this tone at all. True, there are problems and scandals from time to time, but from my experience, the public opinion is not as negative as it's expressed here. The section should me more neutral. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.251.56.36 ( talk) 08:27, 31 December 2009 (UTC) reply

-- Your opinion is not to recognize this ? I'm a Dutch native and all the time there are discussions about the so called 'TBS system'. It’s inhumane, mentally abusive, torture like and so on... how does the Dutch society want the return of these help needing people? if they continue this way, they are putting a kettle on the furnish...   Retrorick wikipedia   talk  14:38, 27 July 2016 (UTC) reply

i need to know how to ack around a Psychiatrist. im not crazy but im scared. how do i talk sit or anything. i know that im not crazy its just that how would you feel if your parents were trying to commit you into something you didnt think that was right for you? im pretty sure you wouldnt. the reason they are considering this is because i dont listen to them. also i think its because they found out i smoke. i dont understand. how do i get help? thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.39.79.2 ( talk) 12:12, 10 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Opening paragraph USA-centric

In the opening paragraph USA policy is mentioned in what appears to be a passing comment initially, but is then used to segue the entire opening paragraph into a description of US policy on involuntary commitment. This information should be in the USA section and the opening paragraph written from a more global perspective. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.17.231.193 ( talk) 11:52, 19 July 2010 (UTC) reply

"Treatment of bipolar disorder" as a category?

how useful is this category? are there also categories "treatment of..." depression, schizophrenia, etc etc. How many treatment related categories should be added? and commitment is not treatment, it is forcibly immobilizing or controlling someone so "treatment" can be administered, I think. EME44 ( talk) 07:00, 9 September 2010 (UTC) reply

Civil confinement

Civil confinement should be merged here as very similar notion. Another related article is SVP laws, but that should stay separate and be expanded because it's a US-specific set of laws, which would bias this article towards the US too much, and the SVP laws article has great potential for expansion (lots of reliable and detailed sources in External links). Tijfo098 ( talk) 18:36, 20 October 2010 (UTC) reply

I don't think they should be merged because civil confinement would also bias the article towards the US too much. Trinitresque ( talk) 12:31, 12 July 2012 (UTC) reply
No action and no consensus. Have removed tag. LT910001 ( talk) 07:39, 8 November 2013 (UTC) reply

Witch Hunts

The parallel between detaining someone for mental illness and witch hunts should be noted, as already noted by others as can been seen around the web. In both cases you are detaining someone because you think there is something wrong with them, but you can not provide any proof. If the psychiatrist thinks you are mentally ill, you are mentally ill! The only hope for you, the patient, is to play a psychological game with the psychiatrist and hope you win.

Nowadays, if an officer wants to detain you and has nothing against you, or if someone you know has a grudge against you, he calls out witch, sorry, mentally ill (suicidal, a danger to others), and voilà, you can get detained for at least a couple of days. Compare this to witch hunts of the old. Even if you are "proved" to be "sane" and released after a couple of days, depending on your personality, you will never forget the humiliation of being treated like a criminal. As for the officer, or the person who knows you, they achieved their objective. They managed to humiliate you legally. If you are homeless, the issue goes far beyond humiliation, and ironically, this becomes the leading cause of your mental deterioration.

In short, the parallel between the two is the ability to detain someone without any proof of crime. -- 99.246.101.166 ( talk) 16:36, 23 December 2010 (UTC) reply


Language Matters

As a premiss, the subject of the article is of interest of many areas of knowledge ranging from Medicine, to Law, to Sociology, to Ethics etc.

The choice of the heading i.e. "Involuntary commitment" seems to accord a linguistic preference to legal definition.

I would wish to observe, however, that the subject matter of the article is by epistemological nature and by psychological research of a relational nature.

Thus the legal terminology leaves in the shadow the fact that in "involuntary commitment":

  • there is a term of the relation (the doctors, the court,..) which voluntarily commits a citizen to a specific course of experience
  • there is a term of the relation, the "patient", who is forced to a specific course of experience,

So there is a party willing to commit the other to compulsory hospitalisation (or treatment, or detention, or lobotomy, etc. as it may be the case)

There is another party forced into the action determined by other relevant agent(s)

On its face "Involuntary Commitment" is a very innocent expression.

I suspect it does not render justice to the brute reality of facts or to the true substance of the matter.

My suggestion is that an alternative heading should be considered. 92.41.29.213 ( talk) 09:18, 3 May 2011 (UTC) MauroUsai reply

We generally use whatever title the typical reliable source (like a newspaper) is using, no matter what we personally think of the title they happen to prefer for a given subject. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 22:52, 3 January 2012 (UTC) reply

payment?

Who pays for this in the US? In the UK it is free for anyone, even those who would not qualify for the NHS (for example, an American tourist returning from Africa and transiting London). Although emergency medical care is also free for everyone, once the patient is stabilized they need to start paying, but even compulsory outpatient psychiatric treatment is free in the UK 94.175.119.32 ( talk) 09:55, 16 October 2011 (UTC) reply

USA state-specific information

In this edit, somebody removed a few paragraphs about the involuntary commitment regimes in Arizona, Connecticut, Iowa, Michigan, Oregon, Nevada and Utah. I'll let others decide if that data is relevant enough for inclusion in this overview article. -- Anthonyhcole ( talk) 09:00, 29 June 2012 (UTC) reply

introduction

Currently, this reads: "If civil commitment proceedings follow, the evaluation is presented in a formal court hearing where testimony and other evidence may also be submitted.[citation needed] The subject of the hearing is typically entitled to legal counsel and may challenge a commitment order through habeas corpus rules.[1]"

This may be accurate for certain American states but it's certainly not accurate for Canadian provinces. I'm in BC and there is no court hearing and patients aren't advised of their right to counsel. Patients are committed for an indeterminate length of time and then they have the option of appearing before the Review Board to try and negotiate their release. Could the article please state that regimes vary in different locations? E. Francesca Allan ( talk) 13:57, 29 June 2013 (UTC) reply

Migration

Many people who are considered insane have a desire to travel, immigrate, or emigrate to another location. Upon release, it becomes a shady proposition. Such folks might be intimidated into believing that migration to another State or Country would result in deportation, imprisonment, or litigation with no recourse. Worse, there can be the idea that involuntary commitment will "follow" folks into a new city or State, and that there is not the option to start from a clean reputation, only to sully that reputation by going elsewhere and exposing authorities to charges and realities that existed somewhere else. Is there anyone who can provide legal expertise on this matter? 173.14.238.114 ( talk) 07:24, 2 September 2015 (UTC) reply

Thomas Szasz

There is a link to Thomas Szasz on here. What about a section about his views of civil commitment? He was probably the loudest voice against civil commitment and psychiatric oppression. Michael Ten ( talk) 06:39, 16 August 2016 (UTC) reply

Two edits: Court ordes and citations

Hey, normally you can challenge stuff by adding citation needed tags but anyway. The citations (and sentence they were citing) are only true in the US, not other countries, I was in the process of finding where this could fit into the article (since I felt a discussion on the internaional variation in commitment standards did not fit in the lead).

Anyway, I'll do all the edits in one go and if you then look at the article and tell me - which bits are untrue or what you would like to be changed (or make the edits yourself... unless you want to completely remove the material in which case we might need more of a discussion).

-- Talpedia ( talk) 16:49, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply

@ Talpedia: The issue isn't "true" or "untrue". The issue is it must be cited. And if something is specific to one country, instead of removing the citation clarify in the text and leave the citation. Sundayclose ( talk) 16:55, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply
You know... some things are actually true, so you don't scare quotes. Dunno about "must be cited". I agree that this material is improved by the presence of a citation, and that international perceptions might lead it to be challenged so will add a relevant citations. As I have say, nay, 3 times, I will re add the citation to the body of the article but removed it because I felt the discussion was too long for the lead. -- Talpedia ( talk) 17:10, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply
@ Talpedia: WP:V: "any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed." You've edited for four years. I assumed you knew that. You may not agree with the policy, but you do have to follow it. If something is "too long for the lead", please move the citation to the appropriate place in the article instead of removing it. Sundayclose ( talk) 17:35, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply
BORING. I'm not going to do what you tell me no matter how many times you say "please" or wikilawyer at me or state facts about me or criticise me. My opinion will be based on what improves the article. Sure you can remove material if it is not cited... but you could wait a little while for it to be added rather than going all edit war. Anyway, as I have said for the 4th time now, I will move the material along with your citation to body of the article - nearly finished now -- Talpedia ( talk) 17:41, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply
@ Talpedia: I'm not saying "please". I'm telling you (not asking you) to follow Wikipedia's policies. Or we can take up this discussion at WP:ANI if you prefer. Sundayclose ( talk) 17:44, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply
Well... you don't really get to tell me what to do. We get to have a three edit war then try to seek consensus, then ask for others to help reach a consensus. So I guess I'll just ignore you telling me what to do but pay attention to any suggestion you have to improve the quality of the article. Feel free to refer me to WP:ANI if you like -- Talpedia ( talk) 17:52, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply
WP:EW: "The three-revert rule is a convenient limit for occasions when an edit war is happening fairly quickly, but it is not a definition of "edit warring", and it is perfectly possible to engage in an edit war without breaking the three-revert rule, or even coming close to doing so."
Do you think we are edit warring? I think you reverted my edit, I addressed some of your points, was addressing some others, before you reverted again, and am in the process of trying to address your current points (edit to be clear, feel free to refer me to WP:ANI if you like, though I'd prefer to produce an article that we are both happy with). -- Talpedia ( talk) 17:58, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply
@ Sundayclose: Okay, I think I've addressed most of your points. See what you think. -- Talpedia ( talk) 18:19, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply

Rates of violence with psychosis

I hope this isn't off topic or too wordy. I think it's difficult for readers to know what "more violent" means without some context, and I think presenting both the 1.3-1.8 figure or the 4-8 figure on their own would be to hide some controversy in the research.

-- Talpedia ( talk) 23:11, 23 August 2020 (UTC) reply

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
To merge the contents of Commitment (mental health) in Involuntary commitment; overlapping topics, with commitment usually being used to imply involuntary commitment; include a disambiguation method for Voluntary commitment (disambiguation page or hatnote). Klbrain ( talk) 05:37, 14 September 2021 (UTC) reply

I propose that we merge Commitment_(mental_health) into this article because they seem to cover the same topic. The other article is to do with the history of commitment and the history if its criticism, so an alternative would be to rename this article to the history. I have spoken about this topic on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Merging_of_commitment_with_involuntary_commitment, and wrote about it on Talk:Commitment_(mental_health) @ Fgnievinski: suggested that this page be merged into the other page. @ Ozzie10aaaa: expressed some doubts because both articles were quite long. @ Flyer22 Frozen: said she felt that in the event of a merge this page should remain citing WP:Common name. I agree because the other page is relatively new while this page has more of a history and more people watching the page. Flyer22 Frozen suggested pinging @ Sundayclose:. I have just added merger proposal banners to both talk pages now. Flyer22 has been helpful in pushing this forward. -- Talpedia ( talk) 16:03, 5 September 2020 (UTC) reply

Since there was some discussion about which page should be merged into which, I have not suggested a direction of merge in the banner. -- Talpedia ( talk) 16:11, 5 September 2020 (UTC) reply

Merge templates don't go on the article talk pages. They go on the articles. So I've fixed that. Started an RfC below, like I stated (at WP:Med) that I would. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 07:47, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply

=== RfC about merging an article with this one ===

Should the Commitment (mental health) article be merged into the Involuntary commitment article? Should it be vice versa? Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 07:47, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply

Survey

  • Comment: If talking about merging the Commitment (mental health) article into the Involuntary commitment article, I don't feel strongly about that. I can support that as long as the content fits and there is no unnecessary redundancy. If talking about vice versa -- merging the Involuntary commitment article into the Commitment (mental health) article, I oppose. Involuntary commitment is a WP:Notable topic. I don't see a solid argument for not allowing it to continue to be its own article just because of the history stuff in the Commitment (mental health) article. Commitment (mental health) is mainly a history article. I can't even state "half a history article and half a criticism article" since even the criticism section focuses on history. In that article's edit history, it's noted that this content was split from the Institutionalisation article. Rather than merging the Involuntary commitment article into the Commitment (mental health) article, some other route should be employed. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 07:47, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Comment: (n.b I initially proposed the merge and intended the merge to be *into* Involuntary commitment) I think a reader who found either page would expect the information on the other page to be contained in that page, so the existence of both pages might lead readers to not find what they wanted. Also, I suspect that overlapping and conflicting content might be added to both pages causing needless work both when adding content and later if the pages were merged. With that said, I think renaming Commitment to "History of Commitment" is a reasonable solution as well, since there is a probably enough information in to the world to support a history of commitment page. -- Talpedia ( talk) 09:49, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply
  • So, what about voluntary commitment? At first blush, I'm thinking merge to Commitment (mental health) and have a large section on involuntary.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:49, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply
    • @ SMcCandlish: The only problem with merging in that direction is that this page predates it (so has more history and is on people's watch lists). I guess this could be worked around with a merge followed by a move to change the name - I'm not that familiar with the behaviour of history and watchlists on move. Talpedia ( talk) 00:44, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
      • Merge into Commitment (mental health), with involuntary and voluntary as sections. Merging the "Commitment (mental health)" article into the "Involuntary commitment" one would make no sense at all, as the latter is a narrow subset of the former; it would be like merging Felidae into domestic cat. But it also doesn't make much sense to keep these pages separate, per WP:CFORK and WP:SPLIT / WP:SUMMARY: We do not need to divide a topic up into subarticles until the main article is approaching the WP:SIZE limit, and we need to not have redundant articles that substantially cover the same material but are diverging from each other. And "this page predates it (so has more history and is on people's watch lists)" is never any kind of merge prevention rationale, nor a criterion by which to determine final article title (see WP:AT and look for any mention of content age). History is not lost. If anyone really cares excessively much, it could be merged into this page, but as general "Commitment (mental health)" material, then round-robin moved by an admin or pagemover, to swap the names, taking watchlist entires along with the moves.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:32, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
        • Okay it seems like watchlist and history aren't an issue then. As I said before I'm happy with either direction of merge Talpedia ( talk) 15:22, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • No, involuntary commitment is different legally, requiring a court order or some official dispensation by which the liberty of the patient to leave is taken away and he is forced into the institution.-- Astral Leap ( talk) 08:39, 14 September 2020 (UTC) reply
  • No clearly two different subjects. Sachin.cba ( talk) 04:58, 25 September 2020 (UTC) reply
    • Hey. @ Sachin.cba: I'm seeing if I can create some consensus. Why do you think the subjects are difference, both are to do with being detained within a mental institution in my understanding. Talpedia ( talk) 00:44, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
      • They aren't different topics. One is a subset of the other that involves some different legalities. The fact that involuntary commitments can be converted to voluntary ones or more often vice versa (time-limited or indefinite) through additional court action and evidence (or even court-free emergency holds at medical discretion) make that pretty clear.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:32, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Merge Clearly a CONTENT FORK of Commitment (mental health), which this article should be merged into. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 04:42, 7 October 2020 (UTC) reply
    • @ GenQuest: The only concern I have about merging in that direction is that this page predates the page (see comment above). Talpedia ( talk) 00:44, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Merge ( Summoned by bot) into Commitment (mental health), any content which is about VOLUNTARY commitment can be dealt with in a sub-section. The involuntry kind is clearly the more common usage of the term. Pincrete ( talk) 17:21, 14 November 2020 (UTC) reply
    • @ Pincrete: I agree that commitment is the more common usage, but see above comment about history and watch lists. Talpedia ( talk) 00:44, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
      • That just isn't relevant (or at least not dispositive); see my !vote comment above.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:32, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Support - I support merging the two articles since they discuss essentially the same topic. [a] Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 21:46, 20 November 2020 (UTC)}} reply
  • If the articles are merged, it should stay at this title for natural disambiguation. ( t · c) buidhe 11:27, 25 November 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Merge commitment into invol. The reason I think they should merge is that the commitment article is mostly discussing the history of invol commitment. The reasons I give this direction: As described by others below, voluntary commitment is an oxymoron and attempting to put vol entirely within a commitment article seems strange. Voluntary admission also has different historical roots (imo), legalities, and reasonings for it to occur vs invol commitment. I think most people looking for commitment are looking for invol. Although, I would be happy with the commitment article being renamed to History of. (sidenote: its strange to me that history of commitment was removed from institutionalism) Xurizuri ( talk) 15:05, 17 December 2020 (UTC) reply
    Revisiting as I have some more reasoning. I feel that the two articles are a bit... empty. This one largely links to other articles, and the commitment one only describes history. It seems it would be useful to combine them, creating a involuntary landing page like you get for feminism, autism, Germany, etc. Direction of merge: the international coverage article is involuntary commitment internationally and keeping the naming similar would be preferable. Xurizuri ( talk) 08:17, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply
    Or we need a broader international article. Since we have no international article on mental-health commitment generally, including voluntary, that is missing content, so the current intl. article situation is not a model to emulate, but a problem to fix. "[V]oluntary commitment is an oxymoron" is WP:OR subjective opinion, and when approached from an objective oxymoron-definition perspective, is actually incorrect. Even if it were not, it wouldn't matter, since the term is in use. WP does not rename things to suit editors' personal senses of logic. And this has nothing to do with a merge/move proposal anyway, since "Voluntary commitment" is not among the proposed article titles. Also, see WP:NOWORK, WP:NODEADLINE: lack of ideal levels of content development is not a rationale to fail to comply with various WP:P&G (MERGE/SPLIT/SUMMARY, etc.)  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:32, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
    yeah I'm backing down on the oxymoron part of my opinion, the component words have contradictory meanings but that doesn't mean the phrase itself isn't reasonable. Still getting used to the rules of WP and I'll rethink how they apply to my take on this, but for now I think at least a component of my final point is reasonable - these seem like content forks. -- Xurizuri ( talk) 09:00, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Notes

  1. ^ The Oxford English Dictionary: commitment, n. 1. a. (a) The action or an act of placing a person in custody or confinement, esp. as a punishment or while awaiting trial; committal to a place of incarceration, correction, etc.; imprisonment, detention. (first use: 1579   J. Jones Arte preseruing Bodie & Soule iii. xxxi. 62  "An order of commitment for meane felows and suche Roags.") (b) The action of placing a person in an institution (now esp. a psychiatric hospital) for care or treatment; esp. the action of causing a person to be compulsorily detained in such an institution. Also: the state of being so detained; the period of detention. (first use: 1826   Papers & Corr. 26 68  "The governor has..authority..to give orders and directions for preparing grants for the custody or commitment of lunatics.")

Discussion

I've alerted I will alert the WikiProjects this talk page is tagged with. As noted above, WP:Med is already aware of this discussion; so there was no need to alert them to this RfC. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 07:47, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply

I see that WP:PSYCHOLOGY was already alerted to this RfC. That WikiProject is barely active, though. It can be described as inactive, not just semi-inactive. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 07:57, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply

Unfortunately true Flyer22. I don't know if other WP:PSYCH folks would agree, but I rarely hear anything from the project. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 18:09, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply
I notify moribund projects anyway; just because their talk pages and other processes are stalled doesn't mean people don't watchlist them. As our editorial pool shrinks and our content grows, there is less and less time for chitter-chatter on wikiproject pages (which is probably a good things for WP:NOT#FORUM and WP:HERE and WP:NOT#SOCIAL and WP:CONLEVEL reasons), but people don't suddenly lose interest in their favorite topics. :-)  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:52, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply

Please see WP:RFCNOT. There is an agreed process for proposed merges. -- Redrose64 🌹 ( talk) 20:55, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply

Hey @ Redrose64:, I admit to not being familiar with wikipedia processeses (though try to be familiar with it's policies!). I think we've followed step 1 and 2 on that the process, and are currently on step 3. Flyer22 suggested we set up an RFC ("since articles are often stuck with merge tags for a long time" Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Merging_of_commitment_with_involuntary_commitment). Sounds like a procedural issue that I'm not qualified to comment on! Talpedia ( talk) 21:17, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply
Should still have merge tags and otherwise follow the WP:PM process, though there is nothing wrong with making the required discussion, of that process, be an RfC (it's often helpful, in fact).  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:49, 6 September 2020 (UTC) reply
Redrose64, I do not need to see WP:RFCNOT. I was already aware of what WP:RFCNOT states. But is not a policy or guideline. Even so, WP:Ignore all rules applies in this case. It is well known that merge proposals, especially on pages that don't get much traction, can remain unresolved for months or years. Like Talpedia quoted me as stating, "articles are often stuck with merge tags for a long time." And   SMcCandlish just stated that "there is nothing wrong with making the required discussion, of that process, be an RfC (it's often helpful, in fact)." So unless you have a more solid reason for this discussion not being an RfC, I will turn it into an RfC again. I might even visit the RfC page and propose that we revisit the WP:RFCNOT criteria. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 08:35, 7 September 2020 (UTC) reply
I also remind you of WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 08:39, 7 September 2020 (UTC) reply
Appropriate use of {{ merge}} (or similar templates) will put the article into Category:Articles to be merged from September 2020 (or similar) and Category:All articles to be merged. An {{ rfc}} tag will not categorise either by reason (in this case, merge) or by date; besides which there have been too many recent cases where {{ rfc}} has been used inappropriately, often for very minor matters. This is why we have WP:RFCST WP:RFCBEFORE and WP:RFCNOT.
If an ongoing merge discussion drags on for some weeks with no clear consensus, or becomes completely deadlocked, opening up an RfC may indeed be a way out. But it is way over the top to go for RfC after less than 16 hours and no comments other than those of the proposer. -- Redrose64 🌹 ( talk) 09:21, 7 September 2020 (UTC) reply
Redrose64, I am a very experienced Wikipedian. I do not need an editor telling me anything about how Wikipedia works, just like I don't need an editor unnecessarily tinkering with RfCs I start, especially when it will stifle discussion. I assessed the situation and knew what was best in this case. I again remind you of WP:Ignore all rules and WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY. So unless you plan to take me to WP:ANI for doing what is best in a case like this, this discussion will be an RfC again. Let me know now if you plan to WP:Edit war on this. There still may not be much traction with the RfC, but the discussion has a better chance of achieving consensus if it's an RfC. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 09:31, 7 September 2020 (UTC) reply
If you are "a very experienced Wikipedian" (and with a first edit on 5 May 2007, you have exactly two years more experience than me) you should know by now that RfC - just like ANI - is not a process of first resort. You will also be aware that if you reinstate the {{ rfc}} without a very good reason, it is you who has begun to EW. -- Redrose64 🌹 ( talk) 11:41, 7 September 2020 (UTC) reply
Your opinions on RfCs and ANI are flawed. An RfC can validly be the first resort, and has been validly the first resort in various cases. And ANI is very often the first resort with no issue, which you would know if you had to deal with as many problematic editors as I do. I deal with them daily. And I report them to a WP:CheckUser, or at WP:AIV, or at WP:ANI, as needed. WP:NOTHERE blocks are common. We do not waste time talking to disruptive editors who clearly are not here to build an encyclopedia or who have severe WP:Competence issues. No, we report those "editors" at WP:ANI. Furthermore, this merge discussion was had at WP:Med first, without much input. And any significantly experienced editor with two eyes could see that bringing the matter to either this talk page or to the Commitment (mental health) talk page would not bring about much traction either, which is what I meant by assessing the situation and seeing that starting an RfC in this case would be (is) a good idea. I never stated that you would immediately take me to ANI, which is why I mentioned edit warring. I was clear that you should let me know if you were going to edit war. That way, I would know if I should expect this to go to ANI. I would know if I should expect to take it to ANI. Also, reverting once (like you reverted my RfC template) is usually not considered edit warring. Otherwise, reverting an editor once and then taking the matter to the talk page would not be presented as a normal and acceptable way of editing at WP:Bold and WP:BRD. It would mean that reverting even even once is an issue. And, well, except for WP:1RR WP:0RR, or cases where the one revert is a clear issue (such as a WP:BLP issue), or cases involving those who employ a revert only when necessary attitude, it's not.
Thank you, Sundayclose, for reinstating the RfC. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 06:37, 8 September 2020 (UTC) Tweaked post. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 07:40, 8 September 2020 (UTC) reply

Question( Summoned by bot), what I don't understand is how (voluntary) commitment is different from simply obtaining treatment for a mental condition. In the UK, 'being committed' refers usually to enforced treatment, but what do the voluntary and enforced commitment have in common ? Is it simply attendance at a place offering treatment for mental health? Pincrete ( talk) 09:11, 22 September 2020 (UTC) reply

The term "commitment" is largely an outdated term, but it is still used (usually for involuntary) primarily because it has been so strongly ingrained in the psychiatric lexicon. The more updated term is simply hospitalization or inpatient, which can be voluntary or involuntary. To answer your question, there is no difference between what is awkwadly referred to as "voluntary commitment" and voluntary hospitalization. Sundayclose ( talk) 00:39, 23 September 2020 (UTC) reply
Good point Sundayclose. The terms I hear these days are "voluntary admission" or, as you wrote, "voluntary hospitalization". "Voluntary commitment" is a contradiction in terms. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 21:53, 20 November 2020 (UTC) reply
Except it's not, but our article material can get into that when better developed. I agree the terms are rather dated, but the implications are not identical. Voluntary treatment or hospitalization (a.k.a. inpatient treatment) is a very general term (often not connected to mental health), while voluntary commitment generally involves contractual agreements, like medium- to long-term financial arrangements, written commitment to completion of a program/regimen with failure having penalties like forfeiture of fees for remaining treatment, no re-admittance to an abandoned program at that institution, or more conditional and restrictive re-admittance, plus possible legal repercussions (e.g. the treatment may have been court-ordered and failure to complete it without rapidly finding replacement and legally equivalent treatment might result in a jail term), etc., etc.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:40, 27 December 2020 (UTC) reply
That's genuinely very interesting SMcCandlish! I don't have a lot of experience with the voluntary commitment aspect as you've described, even though I have a pretty strong knowledge of the laws/systems for commitment where I am (possibly it doesn't happen here but honestly who knows). It would be great to have a section explaining the different implications. -- Xurizuri ( talk) 08:36, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply
The legal stuff will mostly come up in relation to repeat-offender drug offenses, aggravated drunk-driving, suicide threats/attempts, etc., at least over here in the US. There's also stuff that pertains to minors but not adults (e.g. a child showing violent or depressive/suicidal tendencies might be "voluntarily" committed for a month or more of observation and therapy – voluntarily on the part of the parents, not the child.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:20, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Is it relevant to this discussion that there's also articles on voluntary commitment and on outpatient commitment? I think the voluntary one at least is. There's also an article involuntary treatment, but that's for any medical involuntary treatment so that one at least isn't a complication. -- Xurizuri ( talk) 10:14, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Definitely cause for some cross-referencing, at least.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:20, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
On the question of the disambiguation method, WP:TWODAB suggests the use of hatnotes, as it seems clear from the discussion about that the primary topic of commitment is involuntary commitment. So, I've set those for now, but won't object if others prefer a different structure (DAB page was suggested during the discussion). Klbrain ( talk) 05:37, 14 September 2021 (UTC) reply

Relevance of link to Sexually violent predator laws

Hey User:Sundayclose. I think this link might be more relevant than it at first seems from the name: this page discusses a form of indefinite outpatient commitment based on mental health rather than through the legal system. c.f.

"(1) That the person has been convicted of a sexually violent offense (a term that is defined applicable statutes) (2) That the person suffers from a mental abnormality and/or personality disorder, which causes him/her serious difficulty controlling his/her sexually violent behavior. (3) That this mental abnormality and/or personality disorder makes the person likely to engage in predatory acts of sexual violence if not confined in a secure facility."

I don't know if the page needs a better title. Talpedia ( talk) 00:33, 26 December 2020 (UTC) reply

The page is named that because that's what the laws themselves are called. But I think that a link to it from this page should use a different name or explain why it's linked, eg involuntary commitment laws for sexual violence. I agree that it is definitely relevant to this article, the laws are specifically about involuntary commitment of sexually violent predators -- Xurizuri ( talk) 08:30, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply
That seems like good solution. I've added a sentence describing this to the lead (there doesn't seem to be a natural place in the body of the article) Talpedia ( talk) 14:22, 2 January 2021 (UTC) reply
Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Involuntary_commitment&oldid=1207145966"

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