Commentary Part 1 – Amendments to Mental Health Act 1983 Schedule 1: Categories of mental disorder: further amendments etc
19.Subsection (4) of section 1 introduces Schedule 1, Part I of which replaces references in the 1983 Act to the four categories of mental disorder with references simply to mental disorder. The effect is to widen the application of the provisions in question to all mental disorders, not just those which fall within one of the four categories (or the particular category or categories to which the provision applies). Practical examples of disorders which would now be covered by those provisions are forms of personality disorder which would not be considered legally to be “mental illness” and which do not fall within the current definition of psychopathic disorder because they do not result in abnormally aggressive or seriously irresponsible conduct on the part of the person concerned. Other examples almost certainly include certain types of psychological dysfunction arising from brain injury or damage in adulthood. Part 2 of the Schedule makes similar amendments to certain other Acts.