MENTAL HEALTH ETHICS

This course will introduce you to both “classic” and emerging topics that exist at the intersections of Bioethics and broad topics of mental health and illness. We will survey topics within four themes: Medicine & Psychiatry; Policy & Law; Stigma, Narrative, & Lived Experience; and Social Contexts & Justice.

The course begins with a theoretical look at historical concepts of mental illness, long-standing psychiatric diagnostic systems and emerging genomics-based diagnosis, and a consideration of treatment modalities including pharmaceuticals and neurotechnology. We then survey historical and legal dimensions of mental health policy, including psychiatric institutions and deinstitutionalization, questions of capacity, and definitions of dangerousness.