A Study On The Ethical Problems Of Mental Disorders

Mental health is not only a global public health problem, but also an important social problem. Given the fact that the number of various types of mental disorders is rising and mental health resources is scarce, problems concerning with mental health are extraordinarily prominent in China. Mental Health Law of the People’s Republic of China which was enacted on26th October2012and was effective since1st May2013has played and is playing positive role in developing the field of mental health, standardizing mental health services, and safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of persons with mental disorders.The major ethical issues include first, how to guarantee mental patients to be entitled to have appropriate interventions, and second, how to prevent mentally healthy persons not to be diagnosed as mental patients and civilly involuntarily committed into mental hospital, and keep appropriate balance between preventing harms to others by mental patients and protecting their rights and interests. This thesis will focus on second kind of ethical issues. Starting from the realty of China’s psychiatry it will discuss ethical issues concerning with psychiatric diagnosis and involuntary commitment through systematic search and analysis of ethical and legal literature in psychiatry. The goal of this thesis is to explore the possible solution of ethical issues in psychiatry and provide the justification for it, by which propose some policy recommendations.