Family Guide to Mental Illness and the Law: A Practical Handbook is meant to serve as a go-to household reference throughout the life cycle of an adult with mental illness. As it says in the Preface, “Once someone is diagnosed with a mental illness, he or she becomes endowed with certain legal rights and burdened with distinct legal pressures. The new legal rights will come with the status of being disabled. The legal burdens might occasionally require the individual to prove that she or he is able to manage things despite having a mental illness. To make sense of these rights and burdens, this book is organized into five broad parts representing areas of law that apply to adult life: health law, criminal law, employment law, consumer law, and the legal issues associated with death.”

Here is the complete Table of Contents.

PART 1: Health Law

Ch. 1: Health Information Privacy
Ch. 2: Disability Benefits: SSDI and SSI
Ch. 3: Guardianship
Ch. 4: Psychiatric Advance Directives
Ch. 5: Involuntary Commitment
Ch. 6: Professional Misconduct

PART 2: Criminal Law

Ch. 7: When the Police Are Called to Help
Ch. 8: Negative Police Encounters, Getting Arrested, and Going to Jail
Ch. 9: Minor Crimes
Ch. 10: Mental Health Court
Ch. 11: Criminal Court Trials and Mental Illness
Ch. 12: The Rights of People with Mental Illness in Jails and Prisons
Ch. 13: Damaged Reputations

Part 3: Employment Law

Ch. 14: Employee Reputations and Opportunities
Ch. 15: Employment Discrimination
Ch. 16: Taking Leave and Being Compensated
Ch. 17: Responses to Employment Termination

Part 4: Consumer Law

Ch. 18: Owing Money
Ch. 19: Families and Finance
Ch. 20: Trusts
Ch. 21: Supportive Money Management
Ch. 22: Housing Law

Part 5: Death and the Law

Ch. 23: Missing Persons
Ch. 24: Wrongful Death
Ch. 25: Suicide Law
Ch. 26: The Wills of People with Mental Illness