Mental Health Care & Catholic Principles

This nursing assignment examines the importance of applying principles of common good and human dignity in providing mental health care. It argues that nurses must treat patients with respect, ensuring equal opportunities and privileges regardless of their mental health condition. The paper highlights two key Catholic social teaching principles – participation and promotion of peace – as crucial for fostering a just and humane healthcare system. It emphasizes the role of nurses in empowering patients, respecting self-determination, and building lasting relationships based on trust and mutual cooperation.

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Nursing
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Mental Health Care: Call for Principles of Catholic Social Teaching
Individuals with mental disorders have been found across the globe to be deprived of
their fundamental rights. Healthcare professionals, including nurses, have often have deviated
themselves from the duty of treating this section of the patient population as valued
individuals. As a matter of fact, individuals with mental disorders are marginalised in the
communities they belong to. Further, they are also subjected to violations of human rights by
professionals when they present to the treatment facilities with varying health complications.
As nurses, we have the duty and responsibility to address the concerns of this section of the
population by maintaining by maintaining principles of Common Good and Human Dignity.
Humans have established a vision of human flourishing integrated into the principles of
common good.
Highlighting the importance of maintaining principles of common good and human
dignity for human beings, it is to be highlighted that nurses must acknowledge the concept of
dignity being linked with social justice. As a nurse, the approach that is to be taken is to
provide all measures of justice to a patient suffering mental health conditions. Professionals
are to place mental health patients in a position where social justice is equated with the
concepts of equal opportunities and privileges given in the care settings. Treatment given to
these patients must be similar to that given to other patient populations. Though equality is an
element embedded in the concept of social justice, the actual implication for social justice is
much wider. While a group of proponents perceive justice as same as fairness, nurse must
move forward and perceive social justice as upholding the protection of equal access to
liberties, rights, and opportunities while delivery care to mental health patients. Since these
patients are least advantaged members of the community, their dignity is to be maintained by
restricting social exclusion (Massaro, 2015).

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Though principles of common good and human dignity addresses the concerns under
discussion to a large extent, some areas still remain unanswered. Since the social models are
flawed to a considerable extent, it is the Catholic social teaching principles that come into
rescue for enabling human flourishing. The principles act as a coherent framework applying
universal principle to certain circumstances and situations for benefit of human beings. The
two Catholic social teaching principles that can be applied in the present context are
participation and promotion of peace (Waters et al., 2017).
In western liberal society, the key goal is directed towards engaging the patients in
own healthcare. As nurses, we have the prime opportunity to foster patient participation in
care services delivered through an integrated approach. Nurses must take all opportunities to
play a key role in involving the mental health patients in the decision making the process for
their own benefit. The system of mental healthcare needs to be driven towards reforms made
for ensuring treatment based on individual values and beliefs. A wide range of
multidimensional aspects is involved in the process of upholding patient’s participation in
care. These include partnership, collaboration and two-way communication. Participation in
care planning is to be thought as the most basic human right all humans have. As a nurse, one
has the responsibility of encouraging and motivating patients to come into terms with the
mental health conditions they are suffering from. As a result of this patients feel valued and
often comment that the nurses are care giving and inclusive. Patients would also engage in
building up an ongoing relationship with the caregivers.
Peace, as put forward by the Catholic Social Teaching is the fruit of charity and
assistance and the result of justice. It is not merely the absence of conflict or the condition
brought about by a dictatorship. It is, in fact, an appropriate enterprise of justice. For nurses
to upheld peace in relation to mental health patients, it is imperative to maintain the right of
self-determination of patients and respect the. It is tranquillity and serenity that promotes

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mutual cooperation between mental health patients and care givers. Human coexistence is a
core element that nurses must foster by considering patients as humans and not just an
individual requiring care (Stuart, 2014).
True peace is to be obtained through sustaining a life-long relationship with the
patient and can be only built by a nurse who takes efforts to establish so day after day.
Listening to the voice of the patients, since they are oppressed, makes them feel honoured
(Massaro, 2015). Honouring the development of patients directs faster recovery of patient’s
mental health status. If nurses defend the patients and advocate for their independence, much
can be achieved in the future in the mental healthcare domain.

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References
Massaro, T. (2015). Living justice: Catholic social teaching in action. Rowman & Littlefield.
O'brien, M. E. (2017). Spirituality in nursing. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Stuart, G. W. (2014). Principles and Practice of Psychiatric Nursing-E-Book. Elsevier Health
Sciences.
Waters, N. P., Schmale, T., Goetz, A., Eberl, J. T., & Wells, J. H. (2017). A call to promote
healthcare justice: A summary of integrated outpatient clinics exemplifying principles
of Catholic social teaching. The Linacre Quarterly, 84(1), 57-73.