Forced Medication, Patients' Rights and Values Conflicts

• Published in: Psychiatry, psychology, and law Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 1 - 11
• Main Author: Radden, Jennifer
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 01.06.2003
• Subjects: Chemotherapy; Civil rights; Involuntary treatment; Mental illness; Mentally ill; Moral and ethical aspects
• ISSN: 1321-8719; 1934-1687
• DOI: 10.1375/pplt.2003.10.1.1

The philosophical positions known as libertarianism or liberalism, and paternalism or parentalism, in their application to treatment refusals are outlined. The author then discusses recent public policy governing the alleged right to refuse psychotropic medication and draws attention to conceptual issues raised by such a right. These issues include the capacity for rational choice and the way it functions as a criterion in policy about choosing to refuse, the particular set of considerations involved in evaluating the refusal of medication, the category of danger to the self which forms the basis of much recent mental health policy over involuntary treatment, and finally, alternatives to the modernist, rights-based moral and political frameworks undergirding both liberalism and paternalism. These alternatives, deriving from feminist ethics, relational individualism and narrative theories of self, are applied to the challenge of establishing a just and comprehensive policy on forced psychotropic medication.