Cite as: 521 U. S. 346 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
serts that a "mental abnormality" is not equivalent to a "mental illness" because it is a term coined by the Kansas Legislature, rather than by the psychiatric community. Contrary to Hendricks' assertion, the term "mental illness" is devoid of any talismanic significance. Not only do "psychiatrists disagree widely and frequently on what constitutes mental illness," Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U. S. 68, 81 (1985), but the Court itself has used a variety of expressions to describe the mental condition of those properly subject to civil confinement. See, e. g., Addington, supra, at 425-426 (using the terms "emotionally disturbed" and "mentally ill"); Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U. S. 715, 732, 737 (1972) (using the terms "incompetency" and "insanity"); cf. Foucha, 504 U. S., at 88 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (acknowledging State's authority to commit a person when there is "some medical justification for doing so").
Indeed, we have never required state legislatures to adopt any particular nomenclature in drafting civil commitment statutes. Rather, we have traditionally left to legislators the task of defining terms of a medical nature that have legal significance. Cf. Jones v. United States, 463 U. S. 354, 365, n. 13 (1983). As a consequence, the States have, over the years, developed numerous specialized terms to define mental health concepts. Often, those definitions do not fit precisely with the definitions employed by the medical community. The legal definitions of "insanity" and "competency," for example, vary substantially from their psychiatric counterparts. See, e. g., Gerard, The Usefulness of the Medical Model to the Legal System, 39 Rutgers L. Rev. 377, 391- 394 (1987) (discussing differing purposes of legal system and the medical profession in recognizing mental illness). Legal definitions, however, which must "take into account such issues as individual responsibility . . . and competency," need not mirror those advanced by the medical profession. American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders xxiii, xxvii (4th ed. 1994).
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