Court-Ordered Insanity

This book, about involuntary commitment proceedings, focuses on interpretive practice at the nexus of legal, psychiatric, and practical reasoning. It describes the interactional dynamics through which legally and psychiatrically warranted decisions are publicly argued, negotiated, and justified.

James A. Holstein is Associate Professor of Sodology, Marquette University. His research brings an ethnomethodologically-informed constructionist perspective to a variety of topics, including mental illness, sodal problems, family, the life course, and dispute processing. Dr. Holstein is coeditor of the research annual, Perspectives on Social Problems, and coauthor (with J. Gubrium) of What Is Family? and Constructing the Life Course. In addition, he is coeditor (with Gale Miller) of Reconsidering Social Constructionism and Constructionist Controversies (both: Aldine de Gruyter, New York).