•  505
    Despite extensive evidence for its effectiveness, ECT remains the subject of fierce opposition from those contesting its benefits and claiming extreme harms. Alongside some reflections on my experiences of this treatment, I examine the case against ECT, and find that it appears to rest primarily on unsubstantiated claims about major ethical violations, rather than clinical factors such as effectiveness and risk.
  •  239
    Charland's article suggests that we need to think more about whether decision-making capacity is impaired in severe addiction, working from the idea that drug dealers rely on this understanding of addiction to draw in their clients. Charland argues that it is possible to make a choice without being in control (to make decisions without having decision-making capacity). I argue in support of Charland's ideas by examining the reasons supporting a medical model of addiction and its importance. (For…Read more
  •  262
    Reasons for endorsing or rejecting ‘self-binding directives’ in bipolar disorder: a qualitative study of survey responses from UK service users
    with Preety Das, Lucy Stephenson, Gareth Owen, Larry Rifkin, John Dawson, Alex Ruck Keene, and Guy Hindley
    The Lancet Psychiatry 8. 2021.
    Summary Background Self-binding directives instruct clinicians to overrule treatment refusal during future severe episodes of illness. These directives are promoted as having potential to increase autonomy for individuals with severe episodic mental illness. Although lived experience is central to their creation, service users’ views on self-binding directives have not been investigated substantially. This study aimed to explore whether reasons for endorsement, ambivalence, or rejection given by…Read more
  •  182
    Coercion in community health care-an ethical analysis
    with George Szmukler
    In A. Molodynski, J. Rugkasa & T. Burns (eds.), Coercion in Community Mental Health Care: International Perspectives, Oxford University Press. 2016.
    A book chapter exploring the potential consquences and ethical ramifications of using coercive measures within community mental healthcare. We argue that, althogh the move towards 'care in the community' may have had liberalising motivations, the subsequent reduction in inpatient or other supported residential provision, means that there has been an increasing move towards coercive measures outside of formal inpatient detention. We consider measures such as Community Treatment Orders, inducement…Read more
  •  161
    Too similar, too different? The paradoxical dualism of psychiatric stigma
    The Psychiatric Bulletin 38 (4): 148-151. 2014.
    Challenges to psychiatric stigma fall between a rock and a hard place. Decreasing one prejudice may inadvertently increase another. Emphasising similarities between mental illness and ‘ordinary’ experience to escape the fear-related prejudices associated with the imagined ‘otherness’ of persons with mental illness risks conclusions that mental illness indicates moral weakness and the loss of any benefits of a medical model. An emphasis on illness and difference from normal experience risks a res…Read more
  •  37
    Rhetoric and Reason
    Ancient Philosophy 20 (2): 289-310. 2000.
  •  28
  •  313
    Rhetoric and Reason
    Ancient Philosophy 20 (2): 289-310. 2000.
  •  1233
    Medicine and the individual: is phenomenology the answer?
    Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 18 (5): 1102-1109. 2012.
    The issue of how to incorporate the individual's first‐hand experience of illness into broader medical understanding is a major question in medical theory and practice. In a philosophical context, phenomenology, with its emphasis on the subject's perception of phenomena as the basis for knowledge and its questioning of naturalism, seems an obvious candidate for addressing these issues. This is a review of current phenomenological approaches to medicine, looking at what has motivated this philoso…Read more
  •  195
    Fluctuating capacity and advanced decision making – self-binding directives and self-determination’
    with Gareth Owen
    International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 105 (40): 92-101. 2015.
    For people with Bipolar Affective Disorder, a self-binding (advance) directive (SBD), by which they commit themselves to treatment during future episodes of mania, even if unwilling, can seem the most rational way to deal with an imperfect predicament. Knowing that mania will almost certainly cause enormous damage to themselves, their preferred solution may well be to allow trusted others to enforce treatment and constraint, traumatic though this may be. No adequate provision exists for drafting…Read more
  •  244
    Manic temporality
    with Wayne Martin and Gareth S. Owen
    Philosophical Psychology 32 (1): 72-97. 2018.
    ABSTRACTTime-consciousness has long been a focus of research in phenomenology and phenomenological psychology. We advance and extend this tradition of research by focusing on the character of temporal experience under conditions of mania. Symptom scales and diagnostic criteria for mania are peppered with temporally inflected language: increased rate of speech, racing thoughts, flight-of-ideas, hyperactivity. But what is the underlying structure of temporal experience in manic episodes? We tackle…Read more
  •  53
    Conference report: Interdisciplinary workshop in the philosophy of medicine: Parentalism and Trust
    with Emma Bullock and Elselijn Kingma
    Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 21 (3): 542-8. 2015.
    On the 13th June 2014, the Centre for the Humanities and Health (CHH) at King’s College London hosted a one-day workshop on ‘Parentalism and Trust.’ This workshop was the sixth in a series of workshops whose aim is to provide a new model for high-quality open interdisciplinary engagement between medical professionals and philosophers. The term ‘Parentalism’ rather than paternalism is chosen and used throughout because of some of the derisory and unfortunate gender connotations associated with pa…Read more
  •  122
    The Greek Sophists (edited book)
    with John M. Dillon
    Penguin Books. 2003.
    The Sophists, who rose to prominence in democratic Athens during the mid-fifth century b.c., understood the art of rhetoric and the importance of being able to transform effective reasoning into persuasive public speaking. Their inquiries-into the gods, the origins of religion, and whether virtue can be taught-influenced the next generation of classical philosophers and formed the foundations of the European prose style and formal oratory. In this new translation each chapter is organized around…Read more
  •  8
    One Antiphon or Two? (review)
    The Classical Review 55 (2): 411-413. 2005.
  •  2