ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the interactions between doctors, the teams of mental health professionals of which the doctors are part, families and "whanau" of patients, patients, lawyers, judges and tribunals in the processes of review of involuntary detention. It suggests main elements to the therapeutic potential of reviews which take place in a social context. The New Zealand Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992 was passed during a relatively liberal period of thinking in this country about people with mental illness. A competent, responsible clinician will have discussed the narratives and their incommensurability as far as possible with his or her patient before a hearing under the provisions of the Act. Special and restricted patients are most exposed to the social and political elements of decisions about their continuing detention. The chapter considers elements of practice which enhance or diminish the realisation of the therapeutic potential of review processes.