Now that the reader is familiar with the historical and theoretical aspects of ethics in mental health practice, a more practical issue must be addressed: How does one teach mental health ethics? To answer that question, this chapter examines the possible goals of instruction in this area, the variety of approaches taken to the teaching of mental health ethics, and the use of case-oriented material, which the authors have found to be especially useful in the clinical mental health setting. Given the sparseness of the literature on teaching mental health ethics and the commonalities with pedagogic efforts in biomedical ethics as a whole, the works in these areas are cited interchangeably. The subsequent section of the book provides sample case materials that can be employed for case-oriented learning and teaching.

GOALS OF TEACHING MENTAL HEALTH ETHICS

There is widespread agreement among those who teach professional ethics that one goal must serve as the predicate to all others in this discipline. That goal is to heighten the sensitivity of trainees and clinicians to the ethical dilemmas they are likely to confront in routine clinical practice (1–7). In the words of Clouser, “One of the most surprising phenomena about students and professionals is their inability to recognize moral problems as such” (8). Yet, unless the participants in an ethics program begin by acknowledging the relevance of the material to be discussed to their own professional lives, motivation and interest will evaporate, and any more elaborate objectives will remain unfulfilled.