Involuntary commitment

Involuntary commitment, civil commitment, or involuntary hospitalization/hospitalisation, or informally in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth Realms sectioning, being sectioned, commitment, or being committed, is a legal process through which an individual who is deemed by a qualified person to have symptoms of severe mental disorder is detained in a psychiatric hospital (inpatient) where they can be treated involuntarily. This treatment may involve the administration of psychoactive drugs, including involuntary administration. In many jurisdictions, people diagnosed with mental health disorders can also be forced to undergo treatment while in the community; this is sometimes referred to as outpatient commitment and shares legal processes with commitment. Importantly, the term "involuntary commitment" in the United States does not always refer to a legal intervention, but rather refers to an ethical lens from the perspective of individual autonomy. Users of the term are therefore recommended to define precisely what they mean by "involuntary commitment," such as by clarifying the extent they refer to external pressure, civil rights, individual agency, competence and capacity, and ethics.

Criteria for civil commitment are established by laws which vary between nations. Commitment proceedings often follow a period of emergency hospitalization, during which an individual with acute psychiatric symptoms is confined for a relatively short duration (e.g. 72 hours) in a treatment facility for evaluation and stabilization by mental health professionals who may then determine whether further civil commitment is appropriate or necessary. Civil commitment procedures may take place in a court or only involve physicians. If commitment does not involve a court there is normally an appeal process that does involve the judiciary in some capacity, though potentially through a specialist court.