ABSTRACT
Compassion is as fundamental as autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice when treating individuals with an eating disorder. But compassion also can run contrary to these ethical principles when treatment is refused or capacity to make reasoned or rational decisions is overridden by an eating disorder. It is consensus that civil commitment and involuntary treatment are paramount when an individual who has an eating disorder is in medical jeopardy. Whether employed as a last resort when other treatments have failed or implemented during inpatient treatment when a desire to discharge would contribute to risk of medical instability and place the individual in grave danger, compassion demands action. In most cases involving eating disorders, by the time involuntary hospitalization and treatment is under consideration the patient will have been deemed incompetent and lacking decisional capacity. When to use civil commitment becomes a serious decision often creating anguish for family and health care professionals.
