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Updated: Dec 25, 2025

Characterization of the Sense of Agency over the Actions of Neural-machine Interface-operated Prostheses
Published on: January 7, 2019
The place of free will and agency in psychiatric practice
1Oxfordshire Complex Needs Service, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, UK.
Abstract:
In psychiatric practice, professionals tend to split patients into those who are responsible for their actions, and those who are not. This approach does a disservice to both groups. Patients assumed to retain agency may be blamed, and those assumed to lack agency are disempowered. Professionals should adopt a more nuanced approach to agency and control, recognising that it is impaired in most psychiatric disorders, but absent in very few. This is possible without making stigma worse.
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