TFL Vsebine / Revija Revus

Članek obsega kritiko tradicionalne doktrinarne obravnave prava duševnega zdravja (angl. mental health law) ter primerja tradicionalni pristop z novim, interdisciplinarnim pristopom, poimenovanim terapevtska jurisprudenca (angl. therapeutic jurisprudence). Terapevtska jurisprudenca pojmuje pravo kot mogoč terapevtski dejavnik. Predstavljeni so primeri, kako pravna pravila, postopki in vloge pravnih akterjev povzročajo terapevtske ali protiterapevtske izide ter kako lahko pravo pripomore k terapevtskemu izidu, ne da bi žrtvovalo interese pravičnosti.

This article criticizes the traditional doctrinal approach to mental health law (dependence on constitutional law and especially on constitutional criminal procedure). Therefore, the author suggests "to put some mental health into mental health law" meaning to adopt a new approach. He compares the traditional approach with a new, interdisciplinary one known as a therapeutic jurisprudence. The therapeutic jurisprudence views the law itself as a potential therapeutic agent. It looks at the law as a social force that may lead to therapeutic or antitherapeutic consequences. Its task is to identify relationships between legal arrangements and therapeutic outcomes. Examples are given of how legal rules, procedures and the roles of legal actors may give therapeutic or antitherapeutic results and how the law may improve the therapeutic outcomes without sacrificing the interests of the justice. Consequently, the therapeutic jurisprudence introduces a new creative/analytical process - relating a therapeutically relevant psychology to law and exploring the fit between the two. The research task is a cooperative and thoroughly interdisciplinary one (potentially involving law, philosophy, psychiatry, psychology, social work, criminal justice, public health, etc.). As such, it is not dependent on ideological concerns and the precise composition of the U.S. Supreme Court as in the traditional doctrinal/constitutional approach to the mental health law but is also not ideologically grounded in paternalism and coercion.