Jennifer Radden
Honorary Visiting Professor

Profile

Biography

I am now retired from teaching after a career in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. With a background in philosophy and psychology, I have been actively involved in the emergence of Philosophy of Psychiatry as a research field, publishing on mental health concepts, the history of medicine, and ethical and policy aspects of psychiatric theory and practice. Normative issues surrounding anorexia nervosa are my current focus.

Other particular research addresses self and responsibility concepts in relation to mental disorder, and the history of melancholy and depression. Among my recent publications are the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Mental Disorder, a monograph on Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy as mind science (Oxford 2017), and a co-edited volume (with Kelso Cratsley) on ethical issues arising from public health approaches to mental health (Elsevier 2019).

Publications

Full publications list

Books

• (As co-editor) Kelso Cratsley and Jennifer Radden, Mental Health as Public Health: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Ethics of Prevention. Elsevier 2019.
• Melancholic Habits: Burton’s Anatomy & the Mind Sciences. New York: Oxford University Press. 2017.
• On Delusion Philosophy in Action Series. London: Routledge, 2011.
• The Virtuous Psychiatrist: Character Ethics for Psychiatric Practice. Co-written with Dr J Sadler. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
• Moody Minds Distempered: Essays on Melancholy and Depression. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009.
• (As editor), The Philosophy of Psychiatry: A Companion, with an introduction by the editor. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press 2004.
• (As editor), The Nature of Melancholy: Readings on Melancholy, Melancholia and Depression from Aristotle to Kristeva, with an introduction by the editor. New York: Oxford University Press 2000.
• Divided Minds and Successive Selves: Ethical Issues in Disorders of Identity and Personality. Cambridge: MIT Press. 1996.
• Madness and Reason. Studies in Applied Philosophy series. London: Allen & Unwin 1985.

Selected refereed papers and chapters, 2000-

• Melancholy as Disease: Learning about Depression from Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy. 2018. Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology 25: 225-234.
• Rethinking Disease in Psychiatry: Disease Models and the Medical Imaginary, 2018. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice: 1-6.
• Burton’s Anatomy as Classical, and Present-day, Mind Science. 2018. In Psychology and the Classics. Edited by Jeroen Lauwers and Hedwig Schwall. Leuven: De Gruyter. pp 278-293.
• Public Mental Health and Prevention. 2017. Public Health Ethics 11: 1-13.
• Preventive self-help and the six non-naturals: Remedies from Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy. In Philosophical Issues in Pharmaceutics: Development, Dispensing, and Use. Edited by Dien Ho. 2016: Springer. pp 237-255.
• Mental Health, Public Health and Depression, a Bioethical Perspective. Ethics, Medicine and Public Health. 2016 Vol 2 (2): 197-204.
• Virtue Ethics for Psychiatry, in Oxford Handbook of Psychiatric Ethics. John Sadler, W. Van Staden and K.W.M. Fulford, editors. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2015.
• With Varga, Somogy 2014. The Epistemological Value of Depression Memoirs, in Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry. Edited by Fulford, Davies, Graham, Sadler, Stanghellini and Thornton. Oxford University Press.
• The Self and Its Moods in Depression and Mania. Journal of Consciousness Studies. 2013. pp 80-102.
• Delusions Redux. Mind & Language. 2013. Vol. 28, Issue 1. pp 125-139.
• Recognition Rights, Mental Health Consumers and Reconstructive Cultural Semantics in Philosophy, Ethics and Humanities in Medicine. 2012.
• Multiple Selves, Oxford Handbook of the Self. Edited by Shaun Gallagher. Oxford University Press 2010: pp 547-570.
• Thinking About the Repair Manual: Technique and Technology in Psychiatry, in Phillips (ed) Philosophical Perspectives on Technology and Psychiatry. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2008: 263-277.
• With J. Sadler, 2008, Character Virtues in Psychiatric Practice, Harvard Review of Psychiatry vol. 16(6): 373-380.
• My Symptoms, Myself: Reading Mental Illness Memoirs for Identity Assumptions, Depression and Narrative: Telling the Dark. Edited by Hilary Clarke. Pages 15-28. (SUNY Press, 2008).
• A Confusion of Pains: The Sensory and Affective Components of Pain, Suffering and Hurt, Fact and Value in Emotion. Edited by Louis Charland and Peter Zachar (Consciousness and Emotion Book Series, John Benjamins, Amsterdam 2008).
• With Brendel, David, Chu, James et al, A Pragmatic Approach to Receiving Gifts from Patients in Psychiatric Practice, Harvard Review of Psychiatry 2007 Volume 15: 43-51.
• Epidemic Depression and Burtonian Melancholy, Philosophical Papers Vol. 36, No.3 (November 2007): 443-464.
• Virtue Ethics as Professional Ethics: the Case of Psychiatry, in Working Virtue. Edited by R. Walker and P.J. Ivanhoe. Oxford University Press 2006: 113-134.
• Defining Persecutory Paranoia, Reconceiving Schizophrenia. Edited by Man Chung, Fulford, and Graham. Oxford University Press 2006: 255-273.
• With J.M. Fordyce, Into the Darkness: Losing Identity with Dementia, in Dementia: Mind, Meaning and the Person. Edited by Julian C. Hughes, Stephen J. Louw and Steven R. Sabat. Oxford University Press 2005: 71-88.
• Melancholia in the Writing of a Sixteenth Century Spanish Nun, Harvard Review of Psychiatry Vol. 12, No.5 (September/October) 2004: 293-297. (Reprinted in Greek translation 2005).
• The Nature and Scope of Psychiatric Ethics, South African Psychiatry Review 7(1) 2004: 4-9.
• The Pragmatics of Psychiatry and the Psychiatry of Cross-Cultural Suffering, Psychiatry, Philosophy & Psychology Vol. 10, No.1 (March) 2003: 64-66.
• Is this Dame Melancholy? Equating Depression and Melancholia, Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology. Vol. 10, No.1 (March) 2003: 37-52.
• Forced Medication, Patients’ Rights and Values Conflicts, Psychiatry, Psychology, and Law. 2003: 10: 1-11.
• Notes Towards a Professional Ethics for Psychiatry, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. 2002. Vol. 36. No.2: 52-59.
• Some Implications of an Embrace: the DSMs, Happiness and Capability, Values and Psychiatric Classification. Edited by John Z. Sadler. 2002. Johns Hopkins University Press: 165-183.
• Am I My Alter’s Keeper? Multiple Personality Disorder and Responsibility, Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal. 2002. Vol. 7: Number 2: 253-66.
• Boundary Violation Ethics: Some Conceptual Clarifications, Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law vol. 29. No.3, 2001: 319-326.

Invited papers and chapters, 2000-

• Foreword to Mohammed Rashed, 2019. Madness and the demand for recognition: A philosophical inquiry into identity and mental health activism (International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Rights, responsibilities, and mental illnesses: A chronology of the Szasz years. In C.V. Haldipur, J.L. Knoll, and V.D. Luft (eds), Thomas Szasz: An Appraisal of his legacy. 2019. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp 237-255.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on ‘Mental Disorder (Illness)’
• Burton’s Anatomy as Classical, and Present-day, Mind Science. 2018. In Psychology and the Classics. Edited by Jeroen Lauwers and Hedwig Schwall. Leuven: De Gruyter. pp 278-293.
• Ethics and Virtues in Clinical Psychiatry. Special Report: Ethics. Psychiatric Times, March 11, 2014.
• Belief as Delusional and Delusion as Belief. 2014. Commentary, Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology 21: 43-46.
• Shared Descriptions: What can be concluded? Commentary, Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology. 2013 20: 157-9.
• Doing Justice to Justice, Commentary. Legal and Criminal Psychology. 2014. 19: 13-15.
• With Hansen, J., and Potter, N. Introduction from the Guest Editors. International Journal of Feminist Bioethics, Vol. 4 (1) 2011, pp 1-10.
• Reply to Fulford and Sadler, in Religious and Spiritual Issues in Psychiatric Diagnosis: Considerations for a Revised DSM 2010. Edited by Peteet, Lu and Narrow. Washington DC: American Psychiatric Press, pp 263-65.
• Multiple Selves, Oxford Handbook of the Self. Edited by Shaun Gallagher. Oxford University Press 2010: pp 547-570.
• Sigewiza’s Cure: a Reply to Phillips and Boivin, Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology vol. 14 (4): 373-376.
• Insightlessness, the deflationary turn, Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology. 2010. Vol. 17 (1): 81-84.
• Classifying Dysthymia, APA Newsletter on Philosophy and Medicine, 2009, 08 (2), pp 8-12.
• De praestigiis daemonum: Another Look. Melancholie: Modeziekte in de Middeleeuwen en Vroeg-moderne Tijd, Groniek, Historisch Tijdschrift. Vol. 176, No.40 (November 2007): 335-348.
• Introduction, Melancholie: Modeziekte in de Middeleeuwenen Vroeg-moderne tijd, Groniek, Historisch Tijdschrift vol. 176, No.40 (November 2007): 257-259.
• Ipseity in Recovery: A Response to Francoise Dastur and Jean Naudin, Bulletin of the Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry. 2007. Vol. 14 (2): 8-9.
• Learning from Disunity. Commentary on Special Issue: Agency, Narrative and Self, Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology vol. 10. No.4. (December) 2003: 357-359.
• Background Briefing on Psychiatric Ethics Bioethics Vol 16, No.5 (Sept) 2002: 397-411. (Reprinted in The Bioethics Reader Editors' Choice edited by R. Chadwick, H. Kuhse, W. Landman, U. Schuklenk and P. Singer. Maldon MA: Blackwell Publishing 2007: 104-118).
• Love and Loss in Freud’s “Mourning and Melancholia”: a Rereading, The Analytic Freud. Edited by Michael Levin. (Routledge 2000): 211-230.
• Commentary on Braude’s “Dissociation and Latent Abilities: The Strange Case of Patience Worth", Journal of Trauma & Dissociation 2000. Vol. 1. No.2: 55-57.

In preparation, or in press

• Symptoms in Particular: Feminism and the Disordered Mind. In Feminist Philosophy of Mind. Edited by Keya Maitra and Jennifer McWeeny, in press. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Social norms, self-starvation and the anorexic frame of mind.
• Anorexia, Agency, and Decisional Capacity.