Tipping the Scales: Ethical and Legal Dilemmas in Managing Severe Eating Disorders

Treatment advances, both medical and psychological, have increased what can be done for patients with severe eating disorders, but answers to what should be done remain elusive. For this reason, Tipping the Scales: Ethical and Legal Dilemmas in Managing Severe Eating Disorders is a groundbreaking book, one that takes an unflinching look at the role of ethics in compelling treatment for individuals with severe and enduring eating disorders (SEEDs) and the legal context in which coercion, civil commitment, and related issues are situated. Although eating disorders have commanded a great deal of attention from the media, prior to the 1980s there was little published literature to elucidate best medical practices for patients with SEEDs, and currently very few physicians have much medical expertise in this specialized area. The editor, an expert in both eating disorders and forensic psychiatry, has convened a group of contributors who are similarly accomplished, and together, they explore ethical considerations, coercion in treatment, mental capacity in anorexia nervosa, medical guardianship, civil commitment, harm reduction, palliative care, end-stage anorexia, physician-assisted death, and more.

These topics are complex, but essential, to consider, and the authors offer multiple case vignettes to help clinicians tease out the ethical issues and identify a clear path to care that is in patients' best interests. Tipping the Scales is unique in its fearless yet compassionate approach to managing the most treatment-resistant cases of eating disorders.