Medicine and morality in rural Haiti are shaped both by different local religious traditions and by biomedical and folk medicine practices. People who become ill may seek treatment from Western doctors, but also from herbalists and religious leaders. This study examines the decisions guiding such choices, and considers moral issues arising in a society where suffering is associated with guilt but where different, sometimes conflicting, ethical systems coexist. It also reveals how in the crisis of illness people rework religious identities and are forced to address fundamental social and...

This book explores the moral lives of mental health clinicians serving the most marginalized individuals in the US healthcare system. Drawing on years of fieldwork in a community psychiatry outreach team, Brodwin traces the ethical dilemmas and everyday struggles of front line providers. On the street, in staff room debates, or in private confessions, these psychiatrists and social workers confront ongoing challenges to their self-image as competent and compassionate advocates. At times they openly question the coercion and forced-dependency built into the current system of care. At other...