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Institute for Bioethics logo
Laura Matthews

Laura Matthews, PhD

Core Faculty

Professional Statement

Dr. Matthews teaches courses in philosophy of medicine and bioethics at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Recently she has taught HPS 0613, Morality and Medicine, HPS 0612, Mind and Medicine, BIOETH 2658 Philosophy of Medicine, and HPS 1670 Philosophy of Neuroscience, where she and her students explored classic topics in neuroethics, as well as what neuroscience tells us about the distinction (should there be one) between mental and neurological disorders. In her bioethics courses, Dr. Matthews is particularly interested in questions related to forced psychiatric treatment and genetic engineering.

Dr. Matthews’ research focuses primarily on the ontology and phenomenology of mental disorders. She explores how 4E (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended) approaches to mind can solve some ontological questions in mental disorders and how integrating cognitive-scientific frameworks with phenomenology provides a more complete picture of disordered consciousness.

Dr. Matthews’ most recent work addresses some ethical and methodological issues in emerging psychiatric treatments, including chatbot therapy and psychedelic-assisted therapies. She has recently written about the phenomenological distinctions between chatbot and face-to-face therapy and explored some ethical consequences of those distinctions. She is also engaged in ongoing research in the methodological and ethical issues of psychedelic-assisted therapies, which has sparked larger interest in the ethics of psychotherapy.

Dr. Matthews completed a PhD in Philosophy at the University of Georgia.

Appointments

  • Teaching Assistant Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies Department of History and Philosophy of Science Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences
  • Core Faculty Institute for Bioethics

Education and Training

  • PhD, University of Georgia, 2021

Professional Interests in Bioethics

Representative Publications

  1. Forthcoming. Embodiment, interaction, and synchrony: Phenomenological distinctions between face-to-face and chatbot therapy. In Ferrarello, S. (Ed.) Routledge Handbook of Phenomenological Bioethics.

  2. Forthcoming. Pérez-Gay Juárez, F., Díaz, R., Finley, K., Matthews, L. K. Narrative-induced Perspective-Taking: Neuroscientific insights and philosophical implications. In De Brigard, F. and Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (Eds.) Neuroscience and Philosophy, Cambridge: MIT Press.

  3. 2024. On bizarre and non-bizarre delusions. Existenz, 17 (2), 15-28.

  4. 2023. Authenticity, releasement, and mindfulness. Journal of Humanistic Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1177/00221678231218030

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