medical humanities

Supported decision-making has become popular among policymakers and mental health advocates as a means of reducing coercion in mental healthcare. Nevertheless, users of psychiatric services often seem equivocal about the value of supported decision-making initiatives. In this paper we explore why such initiatives might be rejected or ignored by the would-be beneficiaries, and we reflect on broader implications for care and coercion. We take a critical medical humanities approach, particularly through the lens of entanglement.

This article examines the ways in which Colm Tóibín's The Blackwater Lightship carefully negotiates media discourses on HIV/AIDS and the genre of the AIDS narrative in order to shed new light on the physical and emotional experience of being a family caregiver. The novel elevates the otherwise mundane bed to the status of a symbol that reflects a myriad of unspoken social relations and shows how the daily life of the caregiver challenges their ideals, stretches emotional limits, and heightens interdependency.