About the Philosophy of Psychiatry Bibliography

I do not necessary endorse any of the books I list. I certainly have not read them all, and some I have never even seen. The main criteria for inclusion in this bibliography are that a book should address some issues relevant to assessing the status of psychiatry and the mental health profession, or may be useful in making such an assessment. Obviously, this list is not exhaustive, but I intend to keep it up to date and I am always ready to get suggestions for additions.

Deciding in which category a book should fall is in many cases difficult, since the categories I use are not mutually exclusive, and books can be hard to classify. So inevitably some of the classifications I have made may seem arbitrary. I may change the categories in the future, and I would be interested in suggestions for alternative categorizations.

I have included a subsection on the ethics of human genetic technology even though many of the books listed do not directly address psychiatric issues. My reasons are that many of the issues concerning physical maladies will be directly relevant to psychiatric disorders, and that how we deal with genetic factors in mental disorders promises to be such a pressing moral issue within a few years that any relevant books are worth listing here.

Please E-mail me with any corrections, suggestions or reports of out-of-date links for these philosophy of psychiatry pages.

These Philosophy of Psychiatry Bibliography pages are updated frequently: Check back often!

Christian Perring