Advance Directives in Mental Health: Theory, Practice and Ethics

An advance directive is a way of making a person's views known if he or she should become mentally incapable of giving consent to treatment, or making informed choices about treatment, at some future time. Advance Directives in Mental Health is a comprehensive and accessible guide for mental health professionals advising service users on their choices about treatment in the event of future episodes of mental illness, covering all ideological, legal and medical aspects of advance directives.

Jacqueline Atkinson explains their origins and significance in the context of mental health legislation and compares advance directives in mental health with those in other areas of medicine like dementia or terminal illness, offering a general overview of the differences in the laws of various English-speaking countries. She explores issues of autonomy and responsibility in mental health and gives practical advice on how to set up, implement and change advance directives.

The book offers a useful overview of advance directives and is a key reference for all mental health professionals as well as postgraduate students, lawyers who work with mentally ill people, service users and their families and carers.

Acknowledgements. 1 Introduction: Why have advance directives in mental health? Part I The context of advance directives in mental health. 2 Influences on the development of advance directives in mental health. 3 Mental health legislation. 4 Models of advance directives: the history of an idea. 5 Advance directives and the law. Part II Ideological issues in advance directives. 6 Autonomy and advance directives. 7 Personhood and advance directives in mental health. 8 Rationality, decision-making and advance directives. 9 Responsibility and its consequences. Part III Advance directives in practice.10 Advance directives and the research process. 11 Making and implementing advance directives in mental health 12 The experience of advance directives in clinical practice. 13 Attitudes to advance directives. 14 Other approaches to individual future planning. 15 Conclusion: The way forward: The appeal of advance directives. References. Useful web sites. Glossary. Subject index. Author index.