Therapeutic jurisprudence is the study of law's healing potential.
An interdisciplinary approach to legal scholarship that has a law reform agenda, therapeutic jurisprudence seeks to assess the therapeutic and counter-therapeutic consequences of law and how it is applied and to effect legal change designed to increase the former and diminish the latter. It is a mental health approach to law that uses the tools of the behavioral sciences to assess law's therapeutic impact, and when consistent with other important legal values, to reshape law and legal processes in ways that can improve the psychological functioning and emotional well-being of those affected. Therapeutic jurisprudence grew out of the mental health law scholarship of professors Winick and Wexler. Although the field started out in mental health law, it soon expanded to consider other areas of law ranging from criminal law, family law, juvenile law, and health law to contracts and commercial law, tort law, evidence law and legal profession. A comprehensive bibliography of therapeutic jurisprudence books and articles is maintained on the International Network on Therapeutic Jurisprudence .