Three psychiatric patients are dangerously close to social breakdown as a result of financial problems. They are incapable of improving their living conditions because they lack insight and have only very limited problem-solving ability. Measures such as legal guardianship or legal restraint empower someone to make decisions on behalf of the patient and keep the patient from social breakdown. The measures are additional to other forms of coercion that can be used in the treatment of patients with severe psychiatric disorders and social problems.