Digital mental health technologies for diagnostics and treatment: Neglected ethical issues

Digital mental health technologies (DMHTs) for diagnosis and treatment are hoped to bring vast benefits for mental health care. Many scholars have considered familiar ethical issues raised by DMHTs. In this thesis, I explore relatively neglected ethical issues. Specifically, I show how DMHTs may result in harms to patients in the form of epistemic injustice and threats to mental integrity, and how informed consent may not quell ethical concerns. I highlight the legal coercion operating in mental health care and underline the importance of attending to these ethical issues given DMHTs may lead to, or be imposed as, coercive interventions.