Values based psychiatry

Abstract

Values-based Practice is a new approach to working with complex and conflicting values in medicine. The approach is derived from work in analytic philosophy on the logic of values. As a practical approach, it is based primarily on learnable clinical skills. Values-based Practice has been developed particularly in mental health, through a number of programmes involving both voluntary sector and government organisations in the UK and internationally. Two examples of these programmes will be presented: one related to the use of involuntary treatment in psychiatry; the other arising from a government-sponsored programme on diagnosis and assessment in mental health. Values-based Practice is currently being extended into other areas of medicine as a potential partner to evidence-based practice in clinical decision making