Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- Section I Information problems
- Section II End of life care
- Section III Pregnant women and children
- Section IV Genetics and biotechnology
- Section V Research ethics
- Section VI Health systems and institutions
- Section VII Using clinical ethics to make an impact in healthcare
- Section VIII Global health ethics
- Section IX Religious and cultural perspectives in bioethics
- Section X Specialty bioethics
- Introduction
- 56 Surgical ethics
- 57 Anesthesiology ethics
- 58 Critical and intensive care ethics
- 59 Emergency and trauma medicine ethics
- 60 Primary care ethics
- 61 Infectious diseases ethics
- 62 Psychiatric ethics
- 63 Neuroethics
- 64 Pharmacy ethics
- 65 Alternative and complementary care ethics
- Index
- References
62 - Psychiatric ethics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- Section I Information problems
- Section II End of life care
- Section III Pregnant women and children
- Section IV Genetics and biotechnology
- Section V Research ethics
- Section VI Health systems and institutions
- Section VII Using clinical ethics to make an impact in healthcare
- Section VIII Global health ethics
- Section IX Religious and cultural perspectives in bioethics
- Section X Specialty bioethics
- Introduction
- 56 Surgical ethics
- 57 Anesthesiology ethics
- 58 Critical and intensive care ethics
- 59 Emergency and trauma medicine ethics
- 60 Primary care ethics
- 61 Infectious diseases ethics
- 62 Psychiatric ethics
- 63 Neuroethics
- 64 Pharmacy ethics
- 65 Alternative and complementary care ethics
- Index
- References
Summary
Mrs. J, a 22-year-old secretary, began to exhibit restlessness, perplexity, and remoteness from her husband, Mr. K, following the birth of her first baby 10 weeks earlier. A psychiatrist was summoned after she had visited several neighbors without obvious purpose. He found a reticent, detached woman complaining that, “They have been out to get me from the beginning,” and alluding to “world famine and starving children.” Mental status examination revealed vague, paranoid thinking but firm denial of suicidal and homicidal impulses; she was not obviously delirious. Mrs. J resisted the psychiatrist's recommendation that she be admitted to the local psychiatric hospital. Mr. K supported her in this, insisting that he did not regard his wife as mentally ill and feared she would deteriorate if placed alongside genuinely disturbed patients.
What is psychiatric ethics?
Psychiatric ethics is concerned with the application of moral rules to situations and relationships specific to the field of psychiatry. Resolution of ethical dilemmas confronting psychiatrists, as illustrated by the above case, requires deliberation grounded in a moral theoretical framework that provides methods and justifications for clinical decision making. An outline of such theories is covered in the introductory chapter of the book. We will focus exclusively on ethical aspects of clinical practice that are especially challenging to psychiatrists and briefly offer a preferred theoretical framework to deal with them.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Textbook of Bioethics , pp. 487 - 494Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008