Ethical issues in community psychiatry

In delivering mental health services, community psychiatry operates under two contracts: one between the community and the provider of services and one between the provider of services and the individual or organization requesting them. Each party in the contract has a system of ethics and values that determines its conception of what services should be available and how they should be delivered. Often there are conflicts. Using case studies from a community mental health center, the authors discuss many of the conflicts and ways of resolving them.