Concise Guide to Psychiatry and the Law for Clinicians

This volume equips psychiatrists, psychiatric residents and other mental health care professionals with a thorough overview of the clinical management of legal issues in psychiatry. The author encourages psychiatrists to transform the law from adversary to working partner.

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This volume equips psychiatrists, psychiatric residents and other mental health care professionals with a thorough overview of the clinical management of legal issues in psychiatry. The author encourages psychiatrists to transform the law from adversary to working partners, a partnership that can be turned to clinical account for the benefit of patients. Beginning with an overview of clinical psychiatry and the law, this pocket guide covers every essential aspect of how law affects the practise of contemporary psychiatry: the doctor-patient relationship, confidentiality and testimonial privilege, informed consent and the right to refuse treatment, psychiatric treatment, seclusion and restraint, involuntary hospitalization, the suicidal patient, the potentially violent patient, and therapist-patient sex.