Modern psychiatric ethics

Abstract

Psychiatry has a chequered past in the area of ethics and human rights, arguably always “in the rear and limping” in failing to keep up with societal changes—an accusation that has also been levelled at the law.1 When Phillipe Pinel symbolically unchained insane people during the French Revolution, he heralded a humanitarian change in attitude towards mentally ill individuals that was reflected in the UK by the ideology of moral treatment in the early 19th century. Unfortunately, overtaken by complacency and nihilism, compassionate treatment centres were transformed into little more than human repositories by the end of that century.