[Actual ethical problems of present-day psychiatry]

Over recent years many newspapers and journals have published a lot of criticism concerning Soviet psychiatry . Partly, it is true. During a long period of time Soviet psychiatry have underestimated and sometimes ignored an important methodological principle--the principle of a personality approach to the analysis of mental diseases. The personality of patients received improper attention. Hence it followed that the elaboration of ethical problems in psychiatry was lagging behind and the introduction of psychotherapy and methods of psychological correction was slow. At present legal issues of psychiatric care are being actively elaborated. However, they cannot replace the ethical and deontological principles and norms which should be inherent in the work of psychiatrists and medical staff of psychiatric institutions. The paper addresses a number of specific ethical problems in modern psychiatry and offers ways to solve them.