PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Patrick J Sullivan
TI  - Sometimes, not always, not never: a response to Pickard and Pearce
AID  - 10.1136/medethics-2017-104343
DP  - 2017 Sep 14
TA  - Journal of Medical Ethics
PG  - medethics-2017-104343
4099  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2017/09/14/medethics-2017-104343.short
4100  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2017/09/14/medethics-2017-104343.full
AB  - This paper provides a response to Hanna Pickard and Stephen Pearce’s paper ‘Balancing costs and benefits: a clinical perspective does not support a harm minimisation approach for self-injury outside of community settings.’ This paper responded to my article ‘Should healthcare professionals sometimes allow harm? The case of self-injury.’ There is much in the paper that I would agree with, but I feel it is important to respond to a number of the criticisms of my paper in order to clarify my position and to facilitate ongoing debate in relation to this important issue.