Vulnerability of Individuals With Mental Disorders to Epistemic Injustice in Both Clinical and Social Domains

Sense-making and hermeneutical injustice following a psychiatric diagnosis

When one is seriously ill, the diagnosis given can generate questions about what it means and how to make sense of it. This is particularly the case for psychiatric diagnoses which can convey a biomedical narrative of the sufferer's condition. Making sense of one's diagnosis in such cases can involve changing one's self-narrative in such a way as to incorporate the belief that one has developed a disease with an unknown cause. To demonstrate the importance of self-narratives, I outline key themes in narrative theory which have been explored in various ways by philosophers and some psychologists. These theorists emphasise the importance of self-narratives in creating meaning for their authors. The biomedical narrative associated with a psychiatric diagnosis may conflict with the recipient's previous self-narratives. This may reduce the recipient's sense of self-efficacy and induce feelings of hopelessness about recovery. I argue that those receiving a psychiatric diagnosis may consequently be vulnerable to epistemic injustice. In particular, this includes hermeneutical injustice, where individuals lack the ability to understand or articulate their experiences in ways that make sense to them, due to their hermeneutical resources being marginalised by the dominant narrative in a medicalized environment. I consider two possible objections to my claim and offer answers to these.

Epistemic problems with mental health legislation in the doctor-patient relationship

Mental health legislation that requires patients to accept 'care' has come under increasing scrutiny, prompted primarily by a human rights ethic. Epistemic issues in mental health have received some attention, however, less attention has been paid to the possible epistemic problems of mental health legislation existing. In this manuscript, we examine the epistemic problems that arise from the presence of such legislation, both for patients without a prior experience of being detained under such legislation and for those with this experience. We also examine how the doctor is legally obligated to compound the epistemic problems by the knowledge they prioritise and the failure to generate new knowledge. Specifically, we describe the problems of testimonial epistemic injustice, epistemic silencing, and epistemic smothering, and address the possible justification provided by epistemic paternalism. We suggest that there is no reasonable epistemic justification for mental health legislation that creates an environment that fundamentally unbalances the doctor-patient relationship. Significant positive reasons to counterbalance this are needed to justify the continuation of such legislation.

Epistemic Injustice and Nonmaleficence

Epistemic injustice has undergone a steady growth in the medical ethics literature throughout the last decade as many ethicists have found it to be a powerful tool for describing and assessing morally problematic situations in healthcare. However, surprisingly scarce attention has been devoted to how epistemic injustice relates to physicians' professional duties on a conceptual level. I argue that epistemic injustice, specifically testimonial, collides with physicians' duty of nonmaleficence and should thus be actively fought against in healthcare encounters on the ground of professional conduct. I do so by fleshing out how Fricker's conception of testimonial injustice conflicts with the duty of nonmaleficence as defined in Beauchamp and Childress on theoretical grounds. From there, I argue that testimonial injustice produces two distinct types of harm, epistemic and non-epistemic. Epistemic harms are harms inflicted by the physician to the patient qua knower, whereas non-epistemic harms are inflicted to the patient qua patient. This latter case holds serious clinical implications and represent a failure of the process of due care on the part of the physician. I illustrate this through examples taken from the literature on fibromyalgia syndrome and show how testimonial injustice causes wrongful harm to patients, making it maleficent practice. Finally, I conclude on why nonmaleficence as a principle will not be normatively enough to fully address the problem of epistemic injustice in healthcare but nevertheless may serve as a good starting point in attempting to do so.

Epistemic citizenship under structural siege: a meta-analysis drawing on 544 voices of service user experiences in Nordic mental health services

This paper presents a meta-analysis, drawing exclusively on qualitative research (n = 38), which contributes to findings on mental health service user experiences of received provisions and/or encounters in contemporary social and mental health services in the Nordic countries. The main objective is to identify facilitators of, and barriers to, various notions of service user involvement. Our findings provide empirical evidence regarding service users' experiences of participation in their encounters with mental health services. We identified two overarching themes, professional relations and the regulative framework and current rule and norm system, in the reviewed literature concerning facilitators and hindrances of user involvement in mental health services. By including the interrelated policy concept of 'active citizenship' and theoretical concept of 'epistemic (in)justice' in the analyses, the results provide foundations for broader exploration and problematization of the policy ideals of what we call 'epistemic citizenship' and contemporary practices in Nordic mental health organizations. Our conclusions include suggestions that linking micro-level experiences to organizational macro-level circumstances opens up avenues for further research on service user involvement.

Embitterment and metacognition in obsessive-compulsive disorder

OBJECTIVE

Embitterment is a persistent emotion that is known to everybody in reaction to injustice and being let down, associated with feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. People with psychiatric disorders can develop bitterness, which is to be understood as a form of reactive embitterment to the illness. The aim of this explorative study was to investigate the occurrence of embitterment in obsessive-compulsive patients compared to healthy volunteers and in the context of their metacognitions and other biographical and clinical characteristics.

METHOD

Following a semi-structured diagnostic interview, a number of measures were administered to 31 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) [ICD-10 F42.X: mean age 35.2 (SD = 10.7) years] and 31 healthy volunteers [mean age 39.1 (SD = 15.0) years]. These measures included the Post-Traumatic Embitterment Disorder questionaire (PTEDq) for measuring embitterment, the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale, the Metacognition Questionnaire and other psychometric questionnaires such as the Beck Depression Inventory and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory.

RESULTS

Patients with OCD scored more than three times higher (mean = 2.0, SD = 1.1) than the healthy participants in the PTEDq (mean = 0.6, SD = 0.8; p < 0.001), but the cut-off of < 2.5 for a clinically relevant embitterment disorder was not reached. Dysfunctionally distorted metacognition (MCQ-30), which is a consistent finding in OCD, as well as a generally high degree of clinical impairment were significantly cor related to the degree of embitterment.

CONCLUSION

Our findings suggest that embitterment as measured by PTEDq is important in patients with OCD, who are characterized by metacognitive distortions with an injustice of fate as well as a mortification of their self-image. In future, it would be necessary to screen patients with OCD not only for depressive symptoms but also specifically for feelings of embitterment in order to be able to initiate appropriate psychotherapeutic measures at an early stage.

Mental Health Experts as Objects of Epistemic Injustice-The Case of Autism Spectrum Condition

This theoretical paper addresses the issue of epistemic injustice with particular reference to autism. Injustice is epistemic when harm is performed without adequate reason and is caused by or related to access to knowledge production and processing, e.g., concerning racial or ethnic minorities or patients. The paper argues that both mental health service users and providers can be subject to epistemic injustice. Cognitive diagnostic errors often appear when complex decisions are made in a limited timeframe. In those situations, the socially dominant ways of thinking about mental disorders and half-automated and operationalized diagnostic paradigms imprint on experts' decision-making processes. Recently, analyses have focused on how power operates in the service user-provider relationship. It was observed that cognitive injustice inflicts on patients through the lack of consideration of their first-person perspectives, denial of epistemic authority, and even epistemic subject status, among others. This paper shifts focus toward health professionals as rarely considered objects of epistemic injustice. Epistemic injustice affects mental health providers by harming their access to and use of knowledge in their professional activities, thus affecting the reliability of their diagnostic assessments.

Psychiatrization, assertions of epistemic justice, and the question of agency

Thus far, the concept of epistemic injustice in the context of psychiatry has been discussed more widely by clinical academics than by authors with personal experience of psychiatrization. It is from the latter perspective that I critique the practice of attributing testimonial injustice solely to the "stigma against mental illness", and point to psychiatric diagnosing itself as a principal enabler and re-producer of this form of injustice. In relation to hermeneutical justice, I take a closer look at initiatives seeking to incorporate (collective) first-person knowledge into the epistemic systems that currently dominate mental-health service provision and research. Highlighting the incompatibility of psychiatric knowledge claims with first-person ways of knowing, I discuss some of the issues and challenges involved in achieving epistemic justice for psychiatrized people and advancing our collective knowledge base. Finally, I turn to the questions of identity and agency in these processes.

Epistemic injustice and the psychiatrist

BACKGROUND

Psychiatrists depend on their patients for clinical information and are obligated to regard them as trustworthy, except in special circumstances. Nevertheless, some critics of psychiatry have argued that psychiatrists frequently perpetrate epistemic injustice against patients. Epistemic injustice is a moral wrong that involves unfairly discriminating against a person with respect to their ability to know things because of personal characteristics like gender or psychiatric diagnosis.

METHODS

We review the concept of epistemic injustice and several claims that psychiatric practice is epistemically unjust.

RESULTS

While acknowledging the risk of epistemic injustice in psychiatry and other medical fields, we argue that most concerns that psychiatric practice is epistemically unjust are unfounded.

CONCLUSIONS

The concept of epistemic injustice does not add significantly to existing standards of good clinical practice, and that it could produce changes in practice that would be deleterious. Psychiatrists should resist calls for changes to clinical practice based on this type of criticism.

Psychiatry and/or recovery: a critical analysis

This perspective paper aims to present a personal viewpoint on the impact of psychiatric discourse on the principles of recovery in mental health care. Mental health services espouse these principles, yet psychiatric discourse remains the dominant model. A critical analysis will examine how psychiatry maintains this dominance. The aim is to examine how psychiatric discourse constructs both the nature of mental distress and its treatment, and how it maintains its power as the dominant authority and its relationship to recovery principles. The paper concludes that psychiatric discourse is the antithesis of recovery principles and that its authority is perpetuated through co-opting a medical explanatory model, claiming expertise in the ability to predict social risk, and maintaining a tightly controlled echo chamber. A way forward involves the dismantling of the hierarchical service delivery model based on psychiatric discourse and replacing it with a more horizontal service delivery model in which the lived experience of mental distress is central. Regular audit of services needs to prioritize recovery principles. The implications for mental health nursing are considered.

[Testimonial injustice against people with mental disorders in health care. A conceptual and ethical analysis]

Menschen mit psychischer Erkrankung sterben statistisch gesehen früher als die Allgemeinbevölkerung. Ein Grund hierfür ist, dass sie eine schlechtere somatische Gesundheitsversorgung erhalten. Wir argumentieren, dass ableistische Netzwerke sozialer Bedeutung zu einer Abwertung der epistemischen Kompetenz von Menschen mit psychischer Erkrankung führen. Diese Abwertung kann mit dem Konzept der testimonialen Ungerechtigkeit erfasst werden. Testimoniale Ungerechtigkeit bezeichnet das ungerechtfertigte Herabstufen der Glaubwürdigkeit einer*s Sprecher*in aufgrund eines Vorurteils gegen ihre*seine soziale Identität. Wir analysieren ethische und epistemische Folgen testimonialer Ungerechtigkeit als wichtige Ursachen der schlechteren Gesundheitsversorgung von Menschen mit psychischer Erkrankung. Testimoniale Ungerechtigkeit kann zu medizinischen Behandlungsfehlern führen und für Betroffene schwerwiegende gesundheitliche Folgen nach sich ziehen. Zudem kann sie zu einem Vertrauensverlust von Menschen mit psychischer Erkrankung in das Gesundheitssystem führen. Daher trägt testimoniale Ungerechtigkeit zur strukturellen Diskriminierung von Menschen mit psychischer Erkrankung bei. Vor diesem Hintergrund diskutieren wir, wie die somatische Gesundheitsversorgung unter ethischen Gesichtspunkten verbessert werden kann.

Epistemic injustice, children and mental illness

The concept of epistemic (specifically testimonial) injustice is the latest philosophical tool with which to try to theorise what goes wrong when mental health service users are not listened to by clinicians, and what goes right when they are. Is the tool adequate to the task? It is argued that, to be applicable at all, the concept needs some adjustment so that being disbelieved as a result of prejudice is one of a family of alternative necessary conditions for its application, rather than a necessary condition all on its own. It is then argued that even once adjusted in this way, the concept does not fit well in the area where the biggest efforts have been made to apply it so far, namely the highly sensitive case of adult patients suffering from delusions. Indeed it does not serve the interests of service users struggling for recognition to try to apply it in this context, because there is so much more to being listened to than simply being believed. However, the concept is found to apply smoothly in many cases where the service users are children, for example, in relation to children's testimony on the efficacy of treatment. It is suggested that further research would demonstrate the usefulness of the concept in adult cases of a similar kind.

Reasons for endorsing or rejecting self-binding directives in bipolar disorder: a qualitative study of survey responses from UK service users

BACKGROUND

Self-binding directives instruct clinicians to overrule treatment refusal during future severe episodes of illness. These directives are promoted as having the potential to increase autonomy for individuals with severe episodic mental illness. Although lived experience is central to their creation, the views of service users on self-binding directives have not been investigated substantially. This study aimed to explore whether reasons for endorsement, ambivalence, or rejection given by service users with bipolar disorder can address concerns regarding self-binding directives, decision-making capacity, and human rights.

METHODS

This qualitative study used data from an internet-based survey distributed to the mailing list of the UK charity Bipolar UK, which contained multiple closed and open questions on advance decision making for patients with bipolar disorder. We included participants who reported that they have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder by a professional (doctor or psychiatrist). In a previous study, quantitative analysis of a closed question about self-binding directives had shown endorsement among a high proportion of participants with bipolar disorder who completed the survey. In this study, we did a thematic analysis of responses from those participants who answered a subsequent open question about reasons for their view. Research was done within a multidisciplinary team, including team members with clinical, legal, and ethical expertise, and lived experience of bipolar disorder. Ideas and methods associated with all these areas of expertise were used in the thematic analysis to gain insight into the thoughts of individuals with bipolar disorder about self-binding directives and associated issues.

FINDINGS

Between Oct 23, 2017, and Dec 5, 2017, 932 individuals with a self-reported clinical diagnosis of bipolar disorder completed the internet survey, with 565 individuals (154 men, 400 women, 11 transgender or other), predominantly white British, providing free-text answers to the open question. 463 (82%) of the 565 participants endorsed self-binding directives, of whom 411 (89%) describing a determinate shift to distorted thinking and decision making when unwell as their key justification. Responses indicating ambivalence (37 [7%) of the 565 responses) were dominated by logistical concerns about the drafting and implementation of self-binding directives, whereas those who rejected self-binding directives (65 [12%] of the 565 responses) cited logistical concerns, validity of their thinking when unwell, and potential contravention of human rights.

INTERPRETATION

This study is, to our knowledge, the first large study assessing the reasons why mental health service users might endorse or reject the use of self-binding directives. The findings provide empirical support for introducing self-binding directives into mental health services as well as advance decision-making practice and policy, and might help address enduring ethical concerns surrounding possible implementation of the directive while a person retains decision-making capacity. The opinions expressed here in responses given by multiple service users with bipolar disorder challenge a prominent view within international disability rights debates that involuntary treatment and recognition of impaired mental capacity constitute inherent human rights violations.

FUNDING

The Wellcome Trust.

Critical qualitative research on 'madness': knowledge making and activism among those designated 'mad'

This paper charts the background to a project which aimed to map the knowledge being generated across the world by people silenced for centuries - the 'mad': a term with derogatory historical resonances but which is now being reclaimed. The idea that those designated 'mad' can produce knowledge is novel: 'mad' people are imagined as lacking rationality, and incapable of producing knowledge; they are subject to epistemic injustice. Patient engagement in research has grown in the last 20 years but we lack methodological frameworks through which such knowledge can be surfaced. One goal of the project is to let the mad speak their knowledge, often practical knowledge. To do this we had to innovate methodology. Centrally, we refuse the distinction between theory and method for these are constantly intertwined in all research. Thus, what typically comes under 'Method' in background papers is infused with implicit conceptualisation. We carried out 48 interviews in North America, England, Australia, New Zealand, and Eastern and Western Europe. We argue all aspects of these interviews are radically different than is usual for exploratory research in this area. Psychiatry is not central here - it is present only when present in the words of our participants; situated in material and symbolic spaces. We also seek to move away from the individualising therapies of medicines and psychological treatment because they strip participants from their situated realities. Psychiatry enters also because of what it does not do - engage with the life world of its patients. We call then for 'recontextualisation' of madness at all levels. The project was user-led and all researchers had experienced distress and responses to it. Future papers will develop and demonstrate this approach.

Epistemic injustice in psychiatric practice: epistemic duties and the phenomenological approach

Epistemic injustice is a kind of injustice that arises when one's capacity as an epistemic subject (eg, a knower, a reasoner) is wrongfully denied. In recent years it has been argued that psychiatric patients are often harmed in their capacity as knowers and suffer from various forms of epistemic injustice that they encounter in psychiatric services. Acknowledging that epistemic injustice is a multifaceted problem in psychiatry calls for an adequate response. In this paper I argue that, given that psychiatric patients deserve epistemic respect and have a certain epistemic privilege, healthcare professionals have a pro tanto epistemic duty to attend to and/or solicit reports of patients' first-person experiences in order to prevent epistemic losses. I discuss the nature and scope of this epistemic duty and point to one interesting consequence. In order to prevent epistemic losses, healthcare professionals may need to provide some patients with resources and tools for expressing their experiences and first-person knowledge, such as those that have been developed within the phenomenological approach. I discuss the risk of secondary testimonial and hermeneutical injustice that the practice of relying on such external tools might pose and survey some ways to mitigate it.

Discussion Protocol for Alleviating Epistemic Injustice: The Case of Community Rehabilitation Interaction and Female Substance Abusers

Substance-abusing women are vulnerable to specific kinds of epistemic injustice, including stigmatization and discrimination. This article examines the development of the epistemic agency of female substance abusers by asking: How does the use of a formal discussion protocol in community rehabilitation interaction alleviate epistemic injustice and strengthen the epistemic agency of substance abusers? The data were collected in a Finnish rehabilitation center by videotaping six group discussions between social workers, peer support workers, and rehabilitation clients with substance abuse problems. Of these data, one recorded group discussion between four female participants—two rehabilitation clients, a peer support worker, and a social adviser—was used in this paper. Using conversational analysis, the findings indicate that, through the collaborative activities of sharing experiential knowledge about substance abuse and discussing the experiences of abuse in the rehabilitation interaction, substance abusers can develop novel ways to strengthen their epistemic agency by enhanced self-awareness. The discussion protocol is an epistemic tool that professionals and clients can learn to use in ethically and epistemologically successful ways in interaction. The use of a discussion protocol is an example of social professionals’ clinical knowledge of intensifying collaboration and sharing experiential knowledge in community rehabilitation and other substance abuse services.

The value of doing philosophy in mental health contexts

People experiencing mental distress and illness are frequently on the receiving end of stigma, epistemic injustice, and social isolation. A range of strategies are required to alleviate the subsequent marginalisation. We ran a series 'philosophy of mind' workshops, in partnership with a third-sector mental health organisation with the aim of using philosophical techniques to challenge mental health stigma and build resources for self-understanding and advocacy. Participants were those with lived experience of mental distress, or unusual beliefs and experiences; mental health advocates; and mental health service providers (such as counsellors, psychologists and psychiatrists). We draw on a shared perspective as a participant and facilitator of the workshop series to assess their impact. We discuss the following benefits: (i) the opportunity for structured discussion of experiences and models; (ii) dialogue across different mental health backgrounds; (iii) the potential to reduce self-stigma and to increase self-understanding and advocacy; and (iv) the potential to alleviate (some) epistemic injustice. We invite researchers and mental health practitioners to consider further opportunities to investigate the potential benefits of philosophy groups in mental health settings to establish whether they generalise.

Contributory injustice in psychiatry

I explain the notion of contributory injustice, a kind of epistemic injustice, and argue that it occurs within psychiatric services, affecting (at least) those who hear voices. I argue that individual effort on the part of clinicians to avoid perpetrating this injustice is an insufficient response to the problem; mitigating the injustice will require open and meaningful dialogue between clinicians and service user organisations, as well as individuals. I suggest that clinicians must become familiar with and take seriously concepts and frameworks for understanding mental distress developed in service user communities, such as Hearing Voices Network, and by individual service users. This is especially necessary when these concepts and frameworks explicitly conflict with medical or technical understandings of users' experiences. I defend this proposal against three objections.