Michael Lavin

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I am formerly a psychologist civilian psychologist with the Department of the Army at the William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas. I came back to the Army from the Department of Veteran Affairs Mountain Home Health Care System, where I was a psychologist at the Morristown CBOC. Immediately prior to that position, I was a medical advisor at the Army Review Boards Agency in Arlington, Virginia, coming to that position after working as a supervisory psychologist in the Behavioral Health Department at the General Leonard Wood Army Community Hospital, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. In the past, I have worked as a psychologist at Brooke Army Medical Center. I was in private practice as a psychologist in Washington, DC for a number of years, and was also an Assistant and then Associate Professor of Philosophy (tenured) at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. I've written and continue to write on a variety of ethical and conceptual topics in ethics, medicine, and mental health. From July 2021 until the end of January 2022, I was retired but left retirement to work briefly as a psychologist for the DoE in the OST under a contract held by Chenega Healthcare. I have returned to retirement.
Supervisors: Professor Ian Hacking Supervised by Philosophy & Humanities Ph.D. at Stanford, Professor Bruce Sales Supervised my Psychology (clinical) Ph.D. at the University of Arizona at Tucson, the late William Clebsh and the late Lee Sechrest are two other advisors who had major influences in how I think about things., and Earle Baughman, Eli Coleman, Mike Miner, and Dawn Noggle are clinical supervisors who influenced my clinical thinking
Phone: 7034471852
Address: 4829 Manitoba CT NE
Albuquerque, NM 87111
as-my-cat-sees-it.com

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Papers by Michael Lavin

Diagnosis and pharmacotherapy of conduct disorder

Progress in Neuro-psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry, Nov 1, 1993

1. There are few double-blind, placebo-controlled studies of the drug treatment of conduct disord... more 1. There are few double-blind, placebo-controlled studies of the drug treatment of conduct disorders in children and adolescents. M.RLavinandA.Ri!kin .I . Childhood Conduct disorder is associated with a significant risk I-OL-adult psychopathology. ~5. A variety of treatment approaches may be employed to combat conduct disorders. G. The use of neuroleptics, lithium carbonate, stimulants and other agents is reviewed. Kevwords: adolescents, children, conduct disorder, diagnosis, pharmacotherapy Abbreviations: attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), conduct disorder (CD)

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Karen Grandstrand Gervais, Redefining Death

Philosophy in review, 1987

Psychoanalysis: Theory in Crisis

Noûs, Sep 1, 1992

Book Reviews : Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis. BY RONALD BAYER. New York: Basic Books, 1981. Pp. 224. $12.95 U.S

Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Jun 1, 1986

Moral justifications for limits on expert testimony

Expert witnesses in child abuse cases: What can and should be said in court.

Let the Patient Smoke

Psychiatric Services, 1989

express concern that psychiatric patients would object to efforts to restrict or control their sm... more express concern that psychiatric patients would object to efforts to restrict or control their smoking, we did not encounter any objections or complaints from patients or empioyees. Although our study did not indude patients hospitalized on inpatient psychiatric units (as diffenentiated from the inpatient alcohol treatment unit), we believe that effonts to control smoking in such settings would be equally as successful as those we studied. The pioneering example of the Minnesota Smoke-Free Coalition (Knapp J, personal communication, 1 988) in fostering smoke-free hospitals can be followed by other hospitals, even those with psychiatric inpatient units. While more research on the effects of smoking control in psychiatric facilities is needed, smoking-control policies may help facilitate smoking cessation among the psychiatric patient population.

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Ulysses contracts

Journal of applied philosophy, 1986

ABSTRACT 'Ulysses contracts' are an instrument through which a psychiatric patient may ... more ABSTRACT 'Ulysses contracts' are an instrument through which a psychiatric patient may prearrange involuntary commitments to be put into effect if the patient satisjies certain diagnostic criteria in the future. Proposals for Ulysses contracts typically impose numerous safeguards. This ...

Doctors, psychiatrists and disease

Social science & medicine (1982), 1985

The paper's aim is to show how moral concerns may be kept segregated from strictly medical co... more The paper's aim is to show how moral concerns may be kept segregated from strictly medical concerns. To do this, the doctor's specialty is characterized in terms of disease. Doctors may plausibly make special claims qua doctors when they are treating disease. Since mental diseases are sometimes thought to be no more than immoral behavior, the concept of disease receives detailed treatment. So-called 'antipsychiatric' arguments against the existence of purely mental disease are restated. It is accepted that these arguments illustrate the need to insist that genuine diseases have, at least in principle, an underlying physical pathology. It is then argued that prevalent philosophical analyses which seek to do away with the physical pathology requirement do not adequately meet antipsychiatric arguments, and threaten to allow the annexation of morals by medicine. Finally, some conclusions are drawn as to what conclusion might reasonably be drawn concerning psychiatry if i...

Mutilation, deception, and sex changes

Journal of medical ethics, 1987

The paper considers and rejects two arguments against the performance of sexual reassignment surg... more The paper considers and rejects two arguments against the performance of sexual reassignment surgery. First, it is argued that the operation is not mutilating, but functionally enabling. Second, it is argued that the operation is not objectionably deceptive, since, if there is such a thing as our 'real sex', we do not know (ordinarily) what it is. The paper is also intended to shed light on what our sexual identity is and on what matters in sexual relations.

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What doctors should call their patients

Journal of medical ethics, 1988

The paper discusses the moral difficulties physicians encounter when determining the level of for... more The paper discusses the moral difficulties physicians encounter when determining the level of formality they will use when addressing their patients. It is argued that physicians ought not to use a patient's first name unless the patient also uses the physician's first name. In short, physicians and patients should always address each other with the same level of formality. It is argued that this is so even when patients invite physicians to address them informally.

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Who Should Be Committable?

Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 1995

The paper criticizes the prevailing, danger-based involuntary commitment criteria that have chara... more The paper criticizes the prevailing, danger-based involuntary commitment criteria that have characterized U.S. law since the U.S. Supreme Court's 1975 O'Connor v. Donaldson decision. Numerous medical and moral inadequacies are identified in O'Connor-style commitment criteria. It is argued that a treatment-based criterion—derived from the American Psychiatric Association's Model Commitment Law, but a version that disdains reliance on dangerousness to self or others as a ground for commitment—is medically and morally preferable to the prevailing U.S. commitment standard. This treatment-based approach respects competent treatment refusals, but does permit treatable, incompetent individuals to be involuntarily hospitalized for treatment. This approach is defended against possible objections and some of its advantages are identified.

Let the patients smoke: a defence of a patient privilege

Journal of medical ethics, 1990

I examine two kinds ofarguments in favour ofimposing restrictions on smoking by hospitalisedpsych... more I examine two kinds ofarguments in favour ofimposing restrictions on smoking by hospitalisedpsychiatric patients. First, I look at patient-centred arguments in favour of restrictions. These arguments focus on the benefits that patients will receive iftheirsmokingis stopped or curtailed. Second, I examine arguments that seek to justify restrictions by citing the costs that smokers impose on others. Neither kind ofargumentjustifies any meaningful restrictions on the smoking ofhospitalised psychiatric patients.

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Ethics and the Teen Patients

Psychologists treating sick teenagers must decide how they should behave toward them. The questio... more Psychologists treating sick teenagers must decide how they should behave toward them. The question has a technical and a moral dimension. First, the psychologist must decide whether he has the competencies required to provide good enough assessment or care to the child. Second, there are a number of moral difficulties that rarely occur in the treatment of adults that are routine in the assessment and treatment of adolescents. For example, when treating adults, psychologists do not have to obtain permission of the parents to proceed or expect to have contact with the parents as treatment progresses. Adults entitled to a level of privacy in their treatment that minors do not enjoy. Law and custom have created a set of expectation and practices that limit the ability of minors to decidematters relating to their treatment.At the extreme, adults may deny that a teen has the capacity to consent to treatment or non-treatment, though teen may have ability to assent to them. The reason is th...

Ulysses contracts

Understanding limits: Morality, ethics, and law in psychology

Work by Sales and Lavin has suggested that it is possible to improve the moral and ethical thinki... more Work by Sales and Lavin has suggested that it is possible to improve the moral and ethical thinking of psychologists. In particular, moral and ethical thinking by psychologists could be improved if psychologists learned to use defensible moral metrics. The usefulness of formal training in ethics and morality, with the implicit condemnation of the moral metrics that might be taught in such training, has been challenged by writers such as Justice Holmes. He has alleged that professionals learn how to behave in their professional roles by practicing them. A variety of problems are noted with Holmes' view. Further, psychologists cannot rely on expert advice from Institutional Review Boards or Ethics Committees, even if they wished to do so. Institutional Review Boards, and by implication Ethics Conmiittees, have serious deficiencies. However, psychologists can make considerable progress in their moral and ethical thinking, if they distinguish ethics from morality and also notice the similarities between moral thinking and scientific thinking and theorizing. A controversy over the recovered-memoiy therapy is employed to illustrate some of these distinctions and similarities. The argument continues by developing two moral metrics. The first begins with ethics and culminates in moral appraisal. The second makes moral appraisal an earlier step than ethical appraisal. With these metrics described, it is then noted that a popular metric in psychology, that of Koocher and Keith-Spiegel, is inadequate. It is then shown that the two moral metrics earlier described are reasonably believed to be adequate. The adequacy of one of them is directly illustrated with an example involving the question of whether persons with serious mental illnesses should be allowed to enter into contracts 11 that would relax the criteria for their involuntary hospitalization and treatment. It is concluded that teachable, intellectually defensible moral metrics are possible, and that their use would improve the moral and ethical thinking of psychologists.

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Choosing for Children

Parents are typically proxy decision-makers for their children. The standard view in law holds th... more Parents are typically proxy decision-makers for their children. The standard view in law holds that proxies choosing for children have different obligations than a proxy acting for an adult may have. In particular, parents are alleged to have a duty to choose what is in their child’s best interest, rather than what the child would wish, were it competent to decide the matter. In fact, parents do not need to choose what is best for their child, but only what is good enough, since competing interests, for example the well-being of other children and family members, may make it in practice impossible to do what is best for the child. Further, the best-interest standard is hazy about how to determine what is in a child’s best interest. A narrow secular view of best interest might seek to limit proxies to choosing based on what the sciences and prevailing moral views imply. A broader, more defensible view allows parents, at least for a child still lacking the decisional capacity to choos...

Separating death from mind and morals

Let the patient smoke

Hospital & community psychiatry, 1989

Separating death from mind and morals

Public affairs quarterly, 1989

Introductions to the Science of Consciousness

Psyccritiques, 1998

Michael Lavin

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