The Dangerousness of Psychiatrists

Abstract

Since psychosis occasionally leads to behaviour requiring constraint, psychiatrists are involved in decisions which may lead to loss of liberty. In some places and at some times psychiatrists and their predecessors have made those decisions unrestrained. This essay considers how we have used that power in the past, indicates some of the abuses extant now, recognises that there is no satisfying solution to the problems which exist and argues for the consistency of the legal system with all its limitations rather than the uncertain and unrestrained judgment of individual psychiatrists. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 1989; 23: 169-175This essay exists because I attended a meeting in which a number of psychiatrists well known to me as honourable and altruistic professionals were offended when equally honourable and altruistic lawyers argued that some activities of psychiatrists constitute a danger to the liberty of the individual, and therefore require careful and continuing review.