Mental health and ethical considerations

Mental health is the one area of health care where people are often treated against their will, with the justification that it is in their own interest. This raises significant ethical questions and value dilemmas; questions of autonomy, human rights, power and treatment. An understanding of how values matter is of vital importance across all disciplines working within the mental health field.

This book provides a comprehensive and exploratory text for practitioners, students and all those interested in developing a knowledge of both ethics and the wider framework of values-based practice. It is unique in being fully co-written by authors representing both service user and service provider perspectives. This exciting new text will enable the mental health practitioner to work more co-productively with service users within a humane and just approach to care.

With an emphasis on rights-based compassionate care throughout, this book:

• Tackles the issues of how mental health is understood through key theoretical debates about mental distress, values and labelling;
• Encourages readers to think critically about their understanding of key issues such as recovery, autonomy, power, knowledge, diagnoses and empathy;
• Draws on a wide range of case examples and exercises to help readers deepen their knowledge of values-based practice and ethics in mental health.