Am J Psychiatry 1988; 145:413-419
Copyright © 1988 by American Psychiatric Association
The right to refuse treatment with antipsychotic medications: retrospect and prospect
PS Appelbaum
Department of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester 01655.
The right to refuse antipsychotic medication is now more than a decade old.
Its evolution has taken divergent forms, driven either by the needs of
patients' treatment or the mandate of patients' rights. Regardless of the
model employed, refusal is not uncommon, but refusing patients appear
almost always to receive treatment in the end. These findings point up the
essential illogic of allowing committed persons to refuse treatment that
would permit their freedom to be restored. The future evolution of the
right may proceed differently in federal and state courts, but whether at
the level of legal theory or actual practice, some accommodation will
restore the equivalence between the power to commit and the power to treat.
