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68 Rev. Jur. U.P.R. 691 (1999)
The Development of the Therapeutic Jurisprudence: From Theory to Practice

handle is hein.journals/rjupurco68 and id is 701 raw text is: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THERAPEUTIC JURISPRUDENCE: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE DAVID B. WEXLER* I have been explicitly working in the area of therapeutic juris- prudence -the study of the role of the law as a therapeutic agent- for over a decade. I had been implicitly working in the area for somewhat over a decade before that. On this occasion of a 25 year retrospective in the area of law and mental health, I will try to trace the development of therapeutic jurisprudence, to see where it is today, and to suggest what might be its most profitable paths for the future. I began working in the law and mental health field in the early 1970s, and wrote many different types of pieces: an empir- ical study of Arizona's civil commitment system,' a conceptual critique of a psychosurgery case,2 a constitutional and behav- ioral look at token economies,3 an analysis of the links between the civil commitment and the criminal commitment systems,4 and a warning -which remains terribly important to the appro- priate development of therapeutic jurisprudence5- against sub- * Professor of Law and Director, International Network on Therapeutic Ju- risprudence, University of Puerto Rico, and John D. Lyons Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology, University of Arizona. This is a revised version of a lecture presented in October, 1997 at the University of Virginia School of Law. The lecture was part of a conference featuring a 25-year retrospective of developments in the field of law and mental health. The conference papers, in- cluding a somewhat different version of this one (published with the permis- sion of the American Psychological Association), will be published in Lynda Frost Clausel & Richard J. Bonnie, Mental Health Law in Evolution: A 25- Year Retrospective 1972-1997 (A.P.A. forthcoming). I David B. Wexler et al., The Administration of Psychiatric Justice: Theory and Practice in Arizona, 13 ARiz. L. REV. 1 (1971). 2 DAVID B. WEXLER, MENTAL HEALTH LAW: MAJOR ISSUES 193-212 (1981). 3 David B. Wexler, Token and Taboo: Behavior Modification, Token Econo- mies, and the Law, 61 CAL. L. REV. 81 (1973). 4 David B. Wexler, The Structure of Civil Commitment, 7 LAW & HUM. BEHAV. 1 (1983). 5 See Rights/Justice chapters (chapters 33-38), in LAW IN A THERAPEUTIC KEY: DEVELOPMENTS IN THERAPEUTIC JURISPRUDENCE (David B. Wexler & Bruce

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