Mental Health Ethics: The Human Context

By: Phil Barker

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Synopsis: All human behaviour is, ultimately, a moral undertaking, in which each situation must be considered on its own merits. As a result ethical conduct is complex. Despite the proliferation of Codes of Conduct and other forms of professional guidance, there are no easy answers to most human problems. Mental Health Ethics encourages readers to heighten their awareness of the key ethical dilemmas found in mainstream contemporary mental health practice. This text provides an overview of traditional and contemporary ethical perspectives and critically examines a range of ethical and moral challenges present in contemporary ‘psychiatric-mental’ health services. Offering a comprehensive and interdisciplinary perspective, it includes six parts, each with their own introduction, summary and set of ethical challenges, covering: fundamental ethical principles; legal issues; specific challenges for different professional groups; working with different service user groups; models of care and treatment; recovery and human rights perspectives. Providing detailed consideration of issues and dilemmas, Mental Health Ethics helps all mental health professionals keep people at the centre of the services they offer.