Disciplinary Responses to Theology Brief Preview

Love and Justice in Psychiatric Practice

John R. Peteet

Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

I appreciate the chance to read Professor O’Donovan’s Preview. As a psychiatrist who authored a chapter on love in a book on the virtues in psychiatric practice (Peteet 2022), I see loving as central to living well, and helping patients to love more effectively as a potentially important focus of treatment. Furthermore, the therapist’s love for the patient is often central to the establishment of the therapeutic alliance, and to the process of healing for those who have been damaged and/or unloved. Perhaps similar to the way that justice be in tension with love, the boundaries of a clinical relationship can present challenges in negotiating what a therapist can and should do for a patient. 

Peteet JR, Love, In Peteet JR (ed). The Virtues in Psychiatric Practice. Oxford University Press, 2022, 1-14.