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Moral Attitudes & Mental Disorders
Author(s) -
SCHEURICH NEIL
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
hastings center report
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.515
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1552-146X
pISSN - 0093-0334
DOI - 10.2307/3528518
Subject(s) - psychology , mental illness , psychiatry , clinical practice , classification of mental disorders , psychotherapist , mental health , medicine , prevalence of mental disorders , nursing
When psychiatrists treat patients with mental disorders—when clinicians of any stripe have a “difficult patient”—they confront and must come to terms with the thought that the patient is morally responsible for his conduct. Taken to its extreme form, this attitude leads to a repudiation of the whole concept of mental illness. In a modest form, and held perpetually in tension with an objective, clinical stance toward mental disorders, it is an ineluctable part of the practice of psychiatry.