I am a retired child and adolescent Psychiatrist. I am best known for my work as an academic medical ethicist specialising in eating disorders. As part of my research, I spent years sitting for hours with patients and their parents and engaging in Socratic (open-ended , in-depth, exploratory, patient-led) conversations with them about what happens in their minds when they have eating disorders and how it affects how they make decisions.

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I have found that even patients who are quite unwell can tell us a great deal about how eating disorders affect them and the way they think about themselves. This can happen if they are listened to with compassion and allowed to speak in their own way, without pressure or fear of whether they might be forced to do something as a consequence of what they say.

 

I am very proud to say that my research in this area led to major changes in thinking about capacity to make treatment decisions in eating disorders internationally. It also pre-dated the Mental Capacity Act 2005 in the United Kingdom. It was at the leading edge at the time of ethics was not thought of as a subject that could be researched in the field with real people rather than done sat in an armchair with a pipe of tobacco - and thank goodness for that, for I'm not at all an ivory tower armchair thinker or pipe smoker!