Bioética y Salud Mental: reflexiones sobre la afección y la responsabilidad en la relación profesional-paciente

In this article, we present a critical reading about responsibility and mutual affection in the professional setting of mental health. The frame of reference is the relational Cognitive Anthropology and Ethics hermeneutics. We propose a conceptual-applied model to exceed a bioethical vision focused only on the agency and the autonomous competence to make decisions, where the most important thing is the medical judgment. Based on the Principle of Recognition we understand the importance of the meeting professional – patient as an intersubjective space where everyone can respond from their being-able- and decide together. The professional meeting with the person who suffers a mental condition implies the recognition of others. In this perspective, restore a supposed lost equilibrium is not the goal of the professional; rather, addressing such specific forms of particular restructuring that the “sick” individual has developed as resources for coexistence. From these main ideas, it’s concluded in the necessary bioethics conviction of a caring, humanist and personal professional to respond to the specific problems of mental health patient.