![]() | Mirjam Faissner |
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03.09.2024-27.09.2024
Theorizing a discrimination-critical, structurally oriented, mental healthcare ethics
Aim of this research project is to offer an empirical, ethical, and conceptual basis to address structural discrimination within mental healthcare. This objective is achieved through a series of seven papers which contain the main results from my research project. These papers will serve as a basis to prepare a funding application at the German Research Foundation on Bioethics and Structural Justice.
Qualitative empirical research:
Paper 1: Intersectionality and Discriminatory Practices Within Mental Healthcare: A Systematic Review with Qualitative Evidence Synthesis.
In this systematic review, we analyze the experiences, effects, and evaluations of discriminatory practices within mental healthcare using an intersectional approach from the perspective of service users and mental healthcare providers.
Paper 2: Discriminatory practices in German mental healthcare. An intersectional qualitative study with participatory elements.
In this study, we gather the experiences from service users, mental healthcare providers and anti-discrimination consultants on discriminatory practices within mental healthcare in the German context.
Ethical analyses:
Paper 3: The ethics of coercion in mental healthcare: the role of structural racism.
We argue that established criteria for the ethical justification of coercion have important shortcomings in cases where people with mental illness experience structural racism. We demonstrate the susceptibility of these criteria to racist biases and argue that established frameworks do not adequately consider the impact of prior injustices on situations in which coercive measures are applied.
Paper 4: Narrow concepts and mistaken justifications: epistemic injustice and the ethics of coercion within mental healthcare.
I argue that the analyzed failure of established criteria may contribute to epistemic injustice against service users who are subject to structural discrimination. It may lead to two distinct forms of epistemic injustice, which may both undermine service users’ epistemic agency.
Paper 5: Identifying ethical challenges associated with the use of artificial intelligence tools to predict violence in psychiatric inpatient settings.
We identify ethical challenges associated with the use of artificial intelligence to predict violence in psychiatric inpatient care and consider the impact of bias in the data and algorithms. We provide recommendations for whether such tools should be implemented.
Theoretical work:
Paper 6: Intersectionality as a practical tool for clinical ethics consultation in mental healthcare.
Bioethics increasingly recognizes the need to consider structural discrimination within clinical ethics consultations. In this article, we discuss the potential of intersectionality to do so.
Paper 7: Theorizing a discrimination-critical mental health ethics.
This paper will offer philosophical tools to ethically analyze situations, responsibilities and duties in cases in which healthcare is impacted by structural discrimination.