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Synopsis
This book is the result of a long-standing clinical and educational cooperation between a medical psychologist (Bergsma) and a medical ethicist/philosopher (Thomasma). It is thoroughly interdisciplinary in its examination of the difficulties of honoring the patient's and the physician's autonomy, especially in light of the changes in health care worldwide today.
Although autonomy has become the primary standard of bioethics, little has been done to link it to the ways people actually behave, nor to its roots in the healing relationship. Combining as it does the disciplines of psychology and philosophy, this book is a step in that direction.
Booknews
Bergsma (medical psychology, Loyola U. of Chicago) and Thomasma (medical ethics and philosophy, Loyola U. of Chicago) examine the difficulties of honoring the patient's and the physician's autonomy, especially in light of the changes in health care worldwide. Like many professionals, they are dissatisfied with standard accounts of autonomy in bioethics and the philosophy of medicine, but rather than disregard it or downplay it as minor, they incorporate insights from both of their disciplines to construct a synthesis of the two around the identity of the sick, their capacities to be healed, and the capacities of the healers themselves. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)