Bioethics, Informed Consent and Addictions Treatment

Offers guidance to practitioners as to how to obtain ethically valid informed consent to addictions treatment. This book shows how our assumptions about addiction, and the research addressing many of those assumptions, can be used to develop an outline of ethical practice in addictions treatment that focuses on the issue of informed consent.

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Growing data regarding the nature of addiction and recovery suggest that our traditional views of addiction may be obsolete. Informed consent has become a cornerstone of ethical medical practice, yet the ethical codes of the major professions that provide addictions treatment say little or nothing about informed consent. Fortunately, this book provides clear guidance to practitioners as to how to obtain ethically valid informed consent to addictions treatment. Rotgers frames a provocative, timely discussion about how our assumptions about addiction, and the research addressing many of those assumptions, can be used to develop an outline of ethical practice in addictions treatment that focuses exclusively on the issue of informed consent. The author combines bioethical principal ism as well pragmatic bioethics to approach this critical problem in the field.