정신질환자 개념의 규범적 고찰

Mental illness is a term used for a variety of disorders that cause severe disturbances in thinking, feeling, behaving. The mental health act of Korea provides that the mentally ill mean people with mental disease(including an organic mental disease), personality disorder, alcohol abuse, drug poisoning and other mental disorder(non-mental disease). The definition of Mental illness in the mental health act is obscure and in fact the concept of the definition is difficult to frame. If the definition is framed too narrowly, the act deny social welfare services to people with a mental illness. If the definition is too broad, the act excessively intervene people with a mental illness. On January 4, 2010, the Ministry of Health and Welfare issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking regarding the definition of people with a mental illness in the Proposed Mental Health Act amendment. According to the Proposed Mental health Act amendment, some people with a mental illness is classified into the mentally ill with functional deterioration by psychiatrist and the mentally ill with functional deterioration may be disqualified in getting some qualifications for a job as a doctor, nurse, pharmacist etc, and the mentally ill with functional deterioration who is classified by psychiatrist is able to appeal against the determination of the psychiatrist to the Mental Health Review Board. This study is dealing with the definition of mental illness under the Mental Health Act and mental illness with functional deterioration under the proposed Mental Health Act amendment. This study develops a new interpretative framework to reduce the scope of the mentally ill under the Mental Health Act and critically examine the proposed Mental Health Act amendment.