Thank you very much for posting this article, I'm reading it now.
This paragraph really resonated with me and with the initial thoughts I had whilst reading your comment; I'm pasting it here as I think it provides a very worthwhile perspective:
"And my second excuse is that in the end, this is not an adversarial enterprise. Psychiatrists commit people because they’re scared. They’re scared because they can’t predict what the patient is going to do – and on another level, they’re scared because they might get sued if they don’t follow the rules. If patients who aren’t going to hurt themselves know how to explain that they aren’t going to hurt themselves in a way that reassures their psychiatrist, and in a way that doesn’t leave their psychiatrist legally liable for not committing them, then everybody can be more comfortable and get on with the hard work of actual treatment."
This paragraph really resonated with me and with the initial thoughts I had whilst reading your comment; I'm pasting it here as I think it provides a very worthwhile perspective:
"And my second excuse is that in the end, this is not an adversarial enterprise. Psychiatrists commit people because they’re scared. They’re scared because they can’t predict what the patient is going to do – and on another level, they’re scared because they might get sued if they don’t follow the rules. If patients who aren’t going to hurt themselves know how to explain that they aren’t going to hurt themselves in a way that reassures their psychiatrist, and in a way that doesn’t leave their psychiatrist legally liable for not committing them, then everybody can be more comfortable and get on with the hard work of actual treatment."