She is the author of Classifying Madness (2005, Springer), Psychiatry and the Philosophy of Science (2007, Acumen) and Diagnosing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (2014, Karnac).
[1] She submitted her PhD thesis, entitled Classifying Madness: A Philosophical Examination of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, to the University of Cambridge in January 2002.
[2] In Classifying Madness, Cooper offers an analysis of the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), arguing that while the DSM's goal of classifying mental disorders as natural kinds is a good one it is unlikely to be successful in real-world practice.
[7][8][9] The same year, she co-edited, with Havi Carel, the Routledge collection Health, Illness and Disease: Philosophical Essays.
[10] As of 2018[update], Cooper is a professor in Lancaster's Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion and is working on a book about the concept of disease.