Capacity, voluntariness and mental illness: Using mental health advance directives to promote autonomy

This thesis conducts a comparative study of how advance directives for treatment for mental illness are regulated in Australia. It considers whether the legal prerequisites for making a mental health advance directive – capacity and voluntariness – are effective in promoting autonomy in decision-making by people with mental illness. It concludes that they are overly focussed on rationality and external controlling factors, and proposes reform of the current legal framework to also recognise the impact of internal controlling factors (such as delusional false beliefs, serious mood distortions and disorders of valuation) on decision-making