Bill Fulford – författare

In Two Minds is a practical casebook of problem solving in psychiatric ethics. Written in a lively and accessible style, it builds on a series of detailed case histories to illustrate the central place of ethical reasoning as a key competency for clinical work and research in psychiatry. Topics include risk, dangerousness and confidentiality; judgements of responsibility; involuntary treatment and mental health legislation; consent to genetic screening; dual role issues in child and adolescent psychiatry; needs assessment; cross-cultural and gender issues; rational and irrational suicide; shared decision making in multi-agency teams, and the growing role of the user's voice in psychiatry. Key ethical concepts are carefully introduced and explained. The text is richly supported by detailed guides for further reading. There are separate chapters on teaching psychiatric ethics, including a sample seminar, and on writing a research ethics application. Each case history and discussion is followed by a critical commentary from a practitioner with relevant experience. Jim Birley adds a comparative international perspective on psychiatric ethics. Cartoons by Johnny Cowee provide punchy counterpoint! In Two Minds is the sister volume to the third edition of Sidney, Paul Chodoff and Steven Green's highly successful Psychiatric Ethics. In providing a bridge between theory and practice, it will be essential reading for everyone concerned with improving standards in mental health care.

Nature and Narrative is the launch volume in a new series of books entitled International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry. The series will aim to build links between the sciences and humanities in psychiatry. Our ability to decipher mental disorders depends to a unique extent on both the sciences and the humanities. Science provides insight into the 'causes' of a problem, enabling us to formulate an 'explanation', and the humanities provide insight into its 'meanings' and helps with our 'understanding'. Psychiatry, if it is to develop as a balanced discipline, must draw on input from both of these spheres. Nature (for causes) and Narrative (for meanings) will help define the series as a whole by touching on a range of issues relevant to this 'border country'. With contributions from an international star-studded cast, representing the field of psychiatry, psychology and philosophy, this volume will set the scene for this new interdisciplinary field. This will be of interest to all those with practical experience of mental health issues, whether as providers or as users/consumers of services, as well as to philosophers, social scientists, and bioethicists.

Schizophrenia arguably is the most troubling, puzzling, and complex mental illness. No single discipline is equipped to understand it. Though schizophrenia has been investigated predominately from psychological, psychiatric and neurobiological perspectives, few attempts have been made to apply the tool kit of philosophy to schizophrenia, the mix of global analysis, conceptual insight, and argumentative clarity that is indicative of a philosophical perspective. This book is a major effort at redressing that imbalance. Recent developments in the area of philosophy known as the philosophy of psychiatry have made it clear that it is time for philosophy to contribute to our understanding of schizophrenia. The range of contributions is many and varied. Some contributors are professional philosophers; some not. Some contributions focus on matters of method and history. Others argue for dramatic reforms in our understanding of schizophrenia or its symptoms. The authors in this book are committed to the idea that philosophy can indeed help to understand schizophrenia in a way which is different from but complements traditional medical-clinical approaches.The book should appeal to every reader who wants to better understand a major mental illness, including its distinctive character, conscious content, and sources of puzzlement. Readers will find the essays gathered here afford stimulating insights into the human mind and its conditions of vulnerability.

Mental health is the one area of health care where people are often treated against their will, with the justification that it is in their own interest. This raises significant ethical questions and value dilemmas; questions of autonomy, human rights, power and treatment. An understanding of how values matter is of vital importance across all disciplines working within the mental health field. This book provides a comprehensive and exploratory text for practitioners, students and all those interested in developing a knowledge of both ethics and the wider framework of values-based practice. It is unique in being fully co-written by authors representing both service user and service provider perspectives. This exciting new text will enable the mental health practitioner to work more co-productively with service users within a humane and just approach to care. With an emphasis on rights-based compassionate care throughout, this book: - Tackles the issues of how mental health is understood through key theoretical debates about mental distress, values and labelling;- Encourages readers to think critically about their understanding of key issues such as recovery, autonomy, power, knowledge, diagnoses and empathy;- Draws on a wide range of case examples and exercises to help readers deepen their knowledge of values-based practice and ethics in mental health.

Examples include the patient’sautonomy and best interest, the physician’s commitment to establishing high standards of clinical governance, clinical versus community best interest, institutional versus clinical interests, patients insisting on medically unsound but legal treatments etc.