2026 Theses Master's

The Ethical Deployment of Precision Psychiatry in Clinical Medicine

Curran, Cassidy

Precision psychiatry promises to transform mental health care by using biological, clinical, behavioral, neuroimaging, genetic, and other data to identify clinically meaningful patterns and improve diagnosis and treatment selection. Yet it raises significant ethical concerns. This paper examines these concerns and evaluates whether they constitute fundamental limitations on the use of precision psychiatry. It argues that many of the principal objections are not unique to precision psychiatry and, in some respects, may be more pronounced in conventional psychiatric practice, which relies heavily on heterogeneous symptoms and diagnostic categories lacking objective gold standards. At the same time, predictive information can create new risks, particularly when patients receive information about elevated future risk for psychiatric disorders, potentially producing anxiety, stigma, or self-fulfilling effects. This thesis argues for a cautious but not prohibitive approach. Precision psychiatry should be developed and deployed with rigorous validation, representative datasets, attention to marginalized and heterogeneous populations, protections of privacy and data security, clinician education, transparency, and continued reliance on clinical judgment. Properly implemented, precision psychiatry need not displace a biopsychosocial understanding of mental health; instead, it may complement that framework while improving treatment selection, reducing stigma, and expanding opportunities for earlier and more effective intervention.