Law and Mental Health in Australia

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Law and Mental Health system Some individual in legal system will go undiagnosed and may live a normal life like any other normal Human being and may not fit the criteria of disability, but when these individuals come in to contact with criminal law and their disability is highlighted, the legal system try to do justice with them according to the requisite culpability. The Mental Health System helps Legal System to analyse future probability to offend on the danger pendulum that is shaky and changes as Diagnostic Manuals. Legal system and Mental Health System take different approach to the mental health patient and treat it differently, the difference in legal and mental health approach towards the mental health patient is in the very definition, in according to the Mental Health Act, mental illness is associated with the symptoms such as delusion and disturbance in the mood and danger to self and others and therefore it is necessary to have care, treatment and control of the person the definition is narrow and preventative to avoid misuse of the language but in medical terms it is broad and does not limit itself to the definition prescribed by the law, because the focus of clinical practice is to diagnose and cure the person from the disease. In the mental health diagnostic manuals , which is mainly used by the Psychologists and Psychiatrist is Australia for the diagnostic purpose to identify and cure the patient therefore the definition is simple but take a broad approach, the most common and readily used Diagnostic Statistics Manual (DSM) and international classification of disease (ICD-10) takes general approach and generally describes as Behaviour , Psychological and physical disorder of any kind, which can effects the ability of a person to perform normal daily tasks. Although there is a language gap between the law and mental health system but

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