• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.209-279
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• 2016

The Korean Mental Health Act was amended 2016 overall. This paper examines and evaluates the old Korean Mental Health Act since 1995 and the new Korean Mental Health Promotion Act 2016 from the Perspective of Human Rights and Inclusion of Persons with Psychosocial Disabilities. The persons with mental disabilities was separated and ruled out from society by the enactment of the Mental Health Act in 1995 and five times amendment. That has been justified and institutionally supported by medical viewpoint. The medical approach which reconsider the persons with mental disabilities as patients conceal that the aims of the involuntary admission in Mental Hospital are protection of society and the relief of the family member's duty of support for person with mental disabilities. This is institutionally supported in the 1995 Korean Mental Health Act by involuntary admission through the consent of family members as protectors. According to the old Act, the family members as protectors are authorized to consent to involuntary admission of persons with mental disabilities. Also, the psychiatrist that diagnoses the person with mental disabilities and evaluates the need for treatment by admission is not impartial in this decision. Family members as protectors may want to lighten their burden of support for the person with mental disabilities in their home by admitting them into a mental hospital, and the psychiatrist in the mental hospital can be improperly influenced by demand of hospital management. Additionally, Article 24 of the Korean Mental Health Act for the Involuntary Admission by the Consent of Family Members as Protector might violate personal liberty, as guaranteed in the Korean Constitution. The Mental Health Promotion Law was amended to reduce the scope of the persons with mental illness which are subject to forced hospitalization and to demand that a second diagnosis is made by another psychiatrist and screening by the committee concerning the legitimacy of admission in the process of the involuntary admission by the consent of family members as a method of protection. The amended Mental Health Promotion Law will contribute to reducing the number of the involuntary admissions and the inclusion of persons with mental disabilities. But if persons with mental disabilities are not providing some kind of service to the community, the amended Mental Health Promotion Law does not work for Inclusion of them.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.85-111
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• 2016

This study aims to analyse major changes of Mental Health Promotion and Welfare Service Support Act(MHPWSSA) and critically discuss these changes based on the major discourses on Mental Health Act revision. For this purposes this study reviewed literatures and government reports to understand human rights discourses, welfare discourses, and prevention discourses. Secondly, the major changes of MHPWSSA were analysed and discussed based on those discourses. This study found that MHPWSSA defined the concept of people with mental disorders narrowly, tightened the involuntary admission procedures, introduced welfare service support provisions and mental health promotion provisions. But this study shows that the new legislation may well be criticised due to neglect of the concept of disability and people with psychiatric disability, involuntary admission without mental capacity assessment, neglect of the basic values and principles of self determination and independent living common in welfare of the persons with disability. And the new legislation may be criticised due to overuse of the concept of mental health promotion as encompassing promotion, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.125-153
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• 2012

The adult guardianship system has been introduced through amendments of Korean Civil Code for the first time in the March 2011(Act No. 10429, 7. 1. 2013. enforcement). The adult guardianship system has the main purposes to provide a lot of help vulnerable adults and elderly, and protect them on the welfare related with property act, treatment, care, etc. There could be a controversy about whether the protection Legal Guardian's consent(formerly known as the Mental Health Act) or permission of the Family Court(revised Civil Code) are required to, or the Mental Health Act should be revised, when mental patient will be hospitalized forcibly. The author proposes that mental patient with Adult guardians should be determined by Legal Guardian's consent and approval of the Family Court, but mental patient without Adult guardians could be determined by Legal Guardian's consent. The issue of Withdrawing of life-sustaining treatment could be occurred due to the aging society and the development of modern medicine, and this has provided difficult, various problems to mankind in Legal, ethical, and social welfare aspects. The need of Death with dignity law or Natural death law has been reduced for a revision of the Civil Code. Therefore, on the issue of Withdrawing of life-sustaining treatment, in the future, intervention of the court is necessary in accordance with the revised Civil Code Section, and Organ Transplantation Act and the brain death criteria may serve as an important criterion.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.107-133
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• 2010

The attention of case management currently has been highlighted and its importance has been highly emphasized in mental heath field. At this point, We conducted a qualitative study on the experience of case managers from the Suwon Community Mental Health Center where it has implemented the ACT model. Through the result of this study, we verified feasibility of ACT model into Korea. and it has shown that assertive service and team approach has been a critical ingredients of ACT and it extended case manager's ability and brought improvement in relationship between clients and them. the clients has brought a positive changes. However case managers have experienced the dilemma between experts initiatives and clients dependency, and they empathised the importance of the familism and mental health system in Korea. In order to implement ACT extensively, we suggested several implications.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.297-326
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was firstly to analyse the conceptualization of disability of the Mental Health Act and related laws and to suggest revision of the definition of psychiatric disability of Mental Health Act to improve the protection of human rights and welfare of the people with psychiatric disability. For these purposes this paper reflected on the disability models of WHO(1980, 2001) and multiple paradigm of disability of Priestley(1998) and suggested a new conceptualization of disability consists of impairment, functional disability, and social interactional disability. Based on the analyses of conceptualizations of psychiatric disability of related laws, this study suggested revision of Mental Health Act to distinguish between mental disorder and psychiatric disability, to introduce the definition of mental capacity, and to expand the conceptualization of social interactional disability.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.241-269
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to examine the arguments about the conceptualization and the assessment of mental capacity and legal competence concerning the adult guardianship. Based on these literature reviews, the author analysed Mental Capacity Act 2005 of United Kingdom. The act conceptualizes legal competence as a concept dependent on a specific decision, time, and environmental support or convenience. According to the act, the assessment of the legal competence shall be made with ensuring the person all the viable supports and environmental conveniences. And it appears that the hierarchical assessment system of the act assures that the more the decision is important the more professional and more formal assessment shall be used. Based on these findings the author suggested several implications for the legislation of a new adult guardianship act in Korea.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.75-96
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• 2006

Having gone through socioeconomic changes from an agricultural to a post-industrial society, mental health system accordingly has been changed. In Korea where the socioeconomic change has been so rapid, the mental health system and law have been behind the socioeconomic system. Post-industrial society needs more humanized and advanced mental health system, however, Korean mental health law reflects ideology of Korean society in industrial age. This paper attempts to assess the significance Korea's Mental Health Law against the backdrop of socioeconomic changes. A substantial part of the report is devoted to identifying discrepancies between Korea's Mental Health Law and the perspectives of post-industrial ideology and areas for improvement. Improvement in mental health law should take place in line with the changes occurring in socioeconomic environments, the social concept of family, and the public awareness of human rights. Korea's mental health law should be changed in a way to improve hospitalization procedure for people with mental illness, promote the opening of mental health facilities and improve the quality of the lives of the mentally ill. Further changes are deemed necessary in the public and media view of mental illness. Also, the national budget will have to be increased with a view to raise the social rights of those with mental illness to receive quality rehabilitation services.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.155-206
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• 2023

When a person with diminished mental capacity refuses necessary medical care, normative judgments about when paternalistic intervention can be justified come into question. A typical example is involuntary hospitalization for people with mental disabilities, traditionally governed by mental health law. However, Korean civil law reform in 2011 introduced a new form of involuntary hospitalization through guardianship legislation, leading to a dualized system to involuntary hospitalization. Consequently, a conflict has arisen between the 'best interest and surrogate decision-making' paradigm of civil law and the 'social defense and preventive detention' paradigm of mental health law. Many countries have criticized this dualized system as not only inefficient but also unfair. Moreover, the requirement for the presence of 'mental illness' for involuntary hospitalization under mental health law has faced criticism for unfairly discriminating against people with mental disabilities. In response, attempts have been made to integrate guardianship legislation and mental health law based on mental capacity. This study examines the legislative process and framework of the Mental Capacity Act (Northern Ireland) 2016, which reorganized the mental health care system by fusing guardianship legislation with mental health law based on mental capacity. By analyzing the case of Northern Ireland, which has grappled with conflicts between guardianship legislation and mental health law since the 1990s and recently proposed mental capacity as a single, non-discriminatory standard, we aimed to offer insights for the Korean guardianship and mental health systems.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.75-102
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• 2022

In this article, 「Act on the hospice and palliative care and decisions on life-sustaining treatment for patients at the end of life」, 「Act On The Improvement Of Mental Health And The Support For Welfare Services For Mental Patients」, 「Organs Transplant Act」, 「Safety And Management Of Human Tissue Act」, 「Pharmaceutical Affairs Act」, 「Prevention Of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome Act」, 「Tuberculosis Prevention Act」, 「Infectious Disease Control And Prevention Act」 were reviewed. Patients' right to self-determination and consent in these laws are related to civil law. even though they are closely related to the civil law in relation to patients' right to self-determination and consent. In order to consistently operate medical administration, it is necessary to understand the principles of civil law decision-making.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.250-258
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• 2023

The effectiveness of mindfulness techniques in addressing mental health conditions in workers is uncertain. However, it could represent a therapeutic tool for workers presenting with such conditions. Our objective was to assess the effects of mindfulness-based practices for workers diagnosed with mental health conditions. We conducted a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Participants included were workers with a mental health condition. Interventions included any mindfulness technique, compared to any nonmindfulness interventions. Outcomes were scores on validated psychiatric rating scales. A total of 4,407 records were screened; 202 were included for full-text analysis; 2 studies were included. The first study (Finnes et al., 2017) used Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) associated or not with Workplace Dialogue Intervention (WDI), compared to treatment as usual. At 9 months follow-up, for the ACT group, depression scores improved marginally (standardized mean difference [SMD]: -0.06, p = 0.021), but anxiety scores were worse (SMD: 0.15, p = 0.036). Changes in mental health outcomes were not statistically significant for the ACT + WDI group. In the second study (Grensman et al., 2018), no statistically significant change in mental health scales has been observed after completion of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy compared to cognitive behavioral therapy. Substantial heterogeneity precluded meta-analysis. This systematic review did not find evidence that mindfulness-based practices provide a durable and substantial improvement of mental health outcomes in workers diagnosed with mental health conditions.