How do you go about getting mental health help for an adult that refuses treatment?

Answer 1

There isn't much you can do.

You can't legally force someone to get treatment, unless you can prove they are incompetent, or that they are a danger to themselves or others. (There may be other circumstances but I'm not aware of them.) And laws probably vary from state to state.

If their condition is not that extreme, there is nothing you can do at all. If you can persuade, cajole, even coerce them to get help, it will be a wasted effort if they don't really want help or if they believe they don't need it.

It's just like dealing with a drug addict or an alcoholic. If they don't *want* help, no amount of treatment or therapy *will* help.

While it is true that "help will not be helpful unless it is wanted." However on some occasions one may not realize how much help is needed until they are able to see how beneficial medication may be. In my situation I was in a relationship with a man who became schizophrenic. I would trick him into taking his meds every day, and eventually he started feeling a lot more "normal" and he began taking his meds on his own.

Really there is nothing that you can do. My sister has a mental illness and we learned very quickly. What I can recommend to you is NAMI, the North American Alliance for Mental Illness. Here you can take a free 12 week class called Family to Family. You will learn a lot about disease processes, local laws, and what you can do as a relative. Its a great class and really helped my whole family. I hope that you will find s there.

Not only is there little you can do short of attempting to have the adult committed for being a danger to their self or others, or to have them adjudged mentally incompetent, their is little you should do.

If the adult is not a danger and is not incompetent, the belief that you have the right to govern the life of another adult human being is, at best, morally presumptuous. It would be no different to, for example, trick a Schizophrenic into taking their medication then it would to forcibly withhold food from someone you considered obese. You might think you are helping them solve a serious personal problem, but what you are in fact doing is depriving them of their right to self-determination.