Investigating Ethics and Mental Disorders

Dormy House Hotel, 30 June–1 July 2004

This meeting investigated areas of current and potential research in the field of ethics and mental disorders, and explored the potential uses of both theoretical and empirical research methods and their inter-relations.The participants included policy makers, regulators, funders, social scientists, psychiatrists, psychologists, lawyers, philosophers and criminologists.

Discussions concentrated on four main areas of biomedical ethics research in mental health/neuroscience:

• assessment of mental capacity
• treatment and treatability
• the ethics of risk assessment
• the nature of mental disorders.

The meeting also considered suggestions for how the Wellcome Trust's Biomedical Ethics Programme could continue to support and encourage research in this field.

Download the meeting report [PDF 116KB].