Michael A. Gillette, PhD
This highly interactive, case-based, full day seminar will provide attendees with an opportunity to discuss a variety of ethical issues related to mental health and addiction services. We will begin by reviewing a practical approach to ethical analysis that will help the attendees better manage ethical issues that they encounter in their professional lives. We will then move on to discuss a variety of case studies designed to highlight the ethical tension that exists between a desire to respect individual autonomy and the need to maintain appropriate professional standards while attempting to achieve good outcomes.
Upon completion of this session, attendees will be able to:
- To demonstrate a pragmatic technique to identify, analyze and resolve ethical issues.
- To review the concepts of autonomy and capacity and to apply these concepts of recovery principles in mental health, the dignity of risk and professional responsibility.
- To define appropriate ethical responses to cases in which providers, recipients and families disagree about indicated services.
Agenda:
1.5 hours: Distinguish between theoretical approaches to ethical reasoning and a context-sensitive casuistic approach. Present a four-step process for high quality ethical decision making. Demonstrate how the process works on actual case studies.
1.5 hours: Define the concept of autonomy by considering its relationship to capacity and discuss the applicability and limits of this concept. Explain the moral relevance of the dignity of risk.
1 hour: Develop a better understanding of the restrictions that can ethically be applied to personal autonomy by introducing and defining the concept of paternalism (protection from harm to self). Utilize case studies to define ethically appropriate paternalistic intervention.
1 hour: Introduce and define the concept of distributive justice (protection from harm to others). Utilize case studies to define ethically appropriate justice-based intervention.
1 hour: Examine issues where professional responsibility and client/family conflicts arise.
