Autonomy is an important concept in ethical and political theory and arguably a central
concept in bioethics. Its implications for psychiatry are clearest in cases in which …

This paper examines the potential for advance directives to be used by people with mental
illness. Also known as a 'living will', an advance directive enables a competent person to …

The courts' assumption that patients' refusals of treatment are based on autonomous
decision making was evaluated by examining the opinions of 24 involuntarily medicated …

In the mental health law debate over justification for civil commitment of mentally ill persons,
coercion has been a central issue. Participants in the debate have tended to separate into …

A society that is sensitive to rights is, for that reason, sensitive to persons. On one level,
rights function as a meta-possession: a grounding for the possibility of an individual's …

The standard bioethics account is that respecting patient autonomy means ensuring that
patients make their own decisions, and that requires that they give informed consent. In fact …

Psychiatry has a paradoxical place in biomedical ethics. As a practical discipline it is
perhaps more problematic ethically than any other branch of medicine so much so that some …

The authors survey the ethical problems confronting psychiatry today. They state that with
rare exceptions psychiatric intervention can be morally justified only with the potential …

In this paper I review some of the ethical dilemmas that arise when psychiatrists are involved
in the assessment and treatment of medical colleagues. Special attention needs to be paid …

Involuntary psychiatric treatment is currently permitted in all Australian jurisdictions. In
almost all, Tasmania being a recent exception, this is the case regardless of the person's …