Ethical Principles and Skills in the Care of Mental Illness

Caring for people living with mental illness is ethically complex, ethically committed work. The ethical complexity derives in part from the ways in which psychiatric disorders affect a person’s experiences and sense of self. Mental illness influences beliefs, feelings, perceptions, behaviors, and motivations across time. It may interfere with one’s ability to speak, to arrange one’s thoughts, to know one’s preferences. It may interfere with one’s desire to eat, one’s ability to find the energy to get up out of bed, one’s will to make it through a day. Mental illness ultimately can shape one’s development, personality, and capacities for love, self-knowledge, self-reflection, and societal contribution. It is these qualities that define us as human, as individual, and perhaps as moral agents (1, 2).