In this ‘in conversation with,’ I talk to Professor Tony David about his new paper, Insight, the law and psychiatry: Going round in circles or playing nice?. We talk about what ‘insight’ means clinically, and how law and medicine can have a more productive discussion about applying the concept in a way which better secures the interests of those whose capacity to make relevant decisions may be under examination.

For the original video, see here.

In this ‘in conversation’ with Dr Joe Gough, we discuss some of the fruits of his British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Oxford looking at legal and medical assessments of decision-making capacity, how they misfire for the neurodivergent and cognitively disabled, and how this should inform philosophical accounts of agency and autonomy. In this conversation, we look in particular at the assessment of capacity in the context of anorexia, the challenges that anorexia poses to the very concept of capacity, and how to think about justifications for intervention without falling into ‘outcome’ based assessments of capacity.

The papers we refer to in the discussion are.

Affect, Autonomy, Authenticity, and the Assessment of Decision‐Making Capacity: The Problem of Tyrannical Coherence

Decisional capacity, Cartesianism, the CRPD and obfuscating paternalism: substituting ‘supported’ for ‘substitute’

Race and mental capacity: no panacea

Best interest and family compromise

Joe also has a book forthcoming from Oxford University Press, After Mind: Myths of Mind and Mechanism in Philosophy, Science, Medicine, and Law, developing these arguments in a broader context.

For the original video, see here.

In this ‘in conversation with,’ I talk to Nick Robinson, Professor Judy Laing, and Dr Jeremy Dixon about the website that they have recently been involved in setting up providing resources for nearest relatives under the Mental Health Act 1983. Nick gives the perspective of a nearest relative, Jeremy explains the research underpinning the project, Judy explains the resources available, and all three reflect on the difference between the law and legal literacy / legal confidence, and also give some thoughts about the move to ‘nominated persons’ to be brought in by the Mental Health Act 2025.

For the original video, see here.

In this ‘in conversation with,’ I talk to the lawyer and academic Dr János Fiala-Butora about his new book, Implementing the Right to Decide under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Supporting the Legal Capacity of All Persons with Disabilities (Hart, 2025). We think about the debates around legal capacity in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and discuss János’s innovative suggestions about how to move forward from a situation which appears to have become somewhat stuck.

For the original video, see here.

My review of János’s book is here (from which you will see why I was quite so keen to talk to him!).

In this ‘in conversation with,’ I talk to Professor Gareth Owen about his new book Psychiatry and Human Nature: Classic and Romantic Perspectives, and he helps unpack what ‘classic’ and ‘romantic’ mean in this context, moving into deep waters around capacity and risk to others as we go.

The work that we discuss around mental capacity in the second part of the discussion can be accessed via this website.

For the original video, see here.

Following on from my videos about capacity and best interests, this video seeks to put those concepts to practical application.

The slides are here.

Boring but necessary caveat: nothing in this constitutes legal advice

In this ‘in conversation’ with, I talk to Dr Susannah Bowyer, Deputy Director at Research in Practice, about the recent research paper published by Research in Practice and the National Children’s Bureau (commissioned by DfE) entitled (snappily) Improving the outcomes of looked-after children and young people in complex situations with multiple needs, at risk or subject to a Deprivation of Liberty.  Spoiler alert, we do not spend a great deal of time on the technicalities of deprivation of liberty, but instead think about the ‘upstream’ issues (we do, though, flag chapter 5 of the paper – the case-law briefing) written by Camilla Parker KC (Hon)).

For the original video, see here.

In this ‘in conversation with,’ I talk to Professor John Coggon about his – deliberately! – provocative new paper Is Mental Capacity Law Law?. We think about what ‘law’ means in this context, and what judges are doing in legal terms when they are judging in the Court of Protection. And I charge John with nihilism…

The original video is here.

In this ‘in conversation with,’ I talk to Peter Edwards, a solicitor who has just passed his 50 year mark working in mental health (and, since it became a ‘thing,’ mental capacity law), and who has had quite the most extraordinarily varied and significant impact in ways that you might not be aware of. The article that I mention which sets out some of the things that he has done is here, but we use the time to reflect on what has changed for the good, for the bad, and on the ways in which the law helps and hinders.

The original video can be found here.

In this ‘in conversation with,’ I talk to Professor Peter Bartlett about his article “Beyond the liberal subject: challenges in interpreting the CRPD, and the CRPD’s challenges to human rights,” and discuss how the CRPD challenges conventional civil and political rights, the implications for the role of the state (and what happens if the state is not benign), and what the CRPD requires of civil society.

As Peter notes, the article forms part of a special edition of the Human Rights Law Review on the CRPD and next generation human rights thinking.

For the original video, see here.