The International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics
IJFAB VOLUME 4 ISSUE 1: FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES ON ETHICS IN PSYCHIATRY
Psychiatric patients represent one of the most marginalized groups in modern society, while psychiatry itself is one of the most contested fields of medical care. Bioethics, however, rarely addresses the special, even unique, ethical features of psychiatric practice and theory. At a time when mental illness is being redefined and reassessed around the globe, this issue of the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics applies a critical feminist lens to the concepts and clinical contexts of psychiatric care.
Directly engaging the current revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual in Psychiatry, the authors demonstrate from several directions the importance of making gender central to these debates. This feminist critique reveals the need for an analysis of power relations in psychiatric practice, as well as the way gender norms and other contingent cultural norms determine research, diagnosis, and practice. Thus, this feminist critique has implications for psychiatric practice and theory in general.
The analysis of psychiatric concepts and theories through a feminist lens also has general results for ethics itself. As the essays in this issue demonstrate, this critique calls for a “moral ‘particularism’ that acknowledges contextual differences and is inimical to the principle-based approaches dominating much of traditional bioethics.” The authors demonstrate the need for an ethics of care, as well as a need to reformulate the concept of autonomy as relational.
Including leading scholars in the field, such as Carol Gould, Lisa Cosgrove, and Gwen Adshead, as well as younger scholars, the issue provides an indispensable intervention into current debates about psychiatric illness and practice, as well as an important contribution to the redefinition of bioethics itself.
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