Am J Psychiatry 1980; 137:329-331
Copyright © 1980 by American Psychiatric Association
Refusing treatment for mental illness: historical and ethical dimensions
SJ Reiser
The author summarizes the historical bases for overzealous intervention by
physicians, noting the tensions among medical technology, nature as a
healing force, and the physician's warrant to treat. He discusses John
Mill's On Liberty and Gerald Dworkin's "Paternalism" and suggests that
there are times when the intervention should be withheld, but never the
care.
