At the margins of human rights and psychiatric care in North America

The roots and expanse of the rights of psychiatric patients in North Americ a are broad and diverse. This paper focuses on four rights that are pushing at the contemporary margins of patients' rights. First, the right to treat ment, a moral position casting about for legal grounding. Second, the right s of psychiatrically hospitalized patients, articulated in statutes, court decisions, organizational standards and patients' bills of right. Third, pa tient participation in treatment planning, a process involving both rights and responsibilities. Fourth, the right to involuntary outpatient treatment , a process sometimes viewed as a deprivation of and other times as an expa nsion of rights for patients. These rights are addressed in the context of the question, are we going in the proper direction?