Taking the Suspected Mentally Ill off the Streets to Public General Hospitals

Unlike specialists in other areas of medicine, psychiatrists are often faced with having to treat patients against their will. Lack of awareness of their illness and lack of motivation to seek treatment, impaired judgment and reality testing, and potential dangerousness to themselves or to others are commonly found among the seriously mentally ill. To protect patients and society, laws have been enacted that require the involuntary psychiatric evaluation and treatment of patients who are not capable of recognizing their need for psychiatric care. During the 1950s and early 1960s the criteria for civil commitment were vaguely defined, and there was.