A new diagnostic system for organic psychiatry is presented. We first define "organic psychiatry", and then give the theoretical basis for conceiving organic psychiatric disorders in terms of hypothetical psychopathogenetic processes, HPP:s. Such hypothetical disorders are not strictly identical to the clusters of symptoms in which they typically manifest themselves, since the symptoms may be concealed or modified by intervening factors in non typical circumstances and/or in the simultaneous presence of several disorders. The six basic disorders in our system are (...) Astheno Emotional Disorder (AED), Somnolence Sopor Coma Disorder (SSCD), Hallucination Coenestopathy Depersonalisation Disorder (HCDD), Confusional Disorder (CD), Emotional Motivational Blunting Disorder (EMD) and Korsakoff's Amnestic Disorder (KAD). We describe their usual etiologies, their typical symptoms and course, and some forms of interaction between them. (shrink)

This paper introduces and studies a notion of cautious distributed belief. Different from the standard distributed belief, the cautious distributed belief of a group is inconsistent only when all group members are individually inconsistent. The paper presents basic results about cautious distributed belief, investigates whether it preserves properties of individual belief, and compares it with standard distributed belief. Although both notions are equivalent in the class of reflexive models, this is not the case in general. While we argue that an (...) understanding of the concept of cautious distributed belief from first principles is important, cautious distributed belief can be expressed using standard distrbuted belief and we show that the propositional language extended only with cautious distributed belief is in fact strictly less expressive than the propositional language extended only with standard distributed belief. We, finally, identify a small extension of the language making the former as expressive as the latter. (shrink)

Gender-inclusive language, such as the Swedish pronoun hen, may aid in breaking a binary notion of gender and avoid sexism. The present study followed the implementation of a gender-inclusive third-person pronoun singular in Swedish in two surveys with representative samples in 2015 and in 2018. The surveys comprised measures of attitudes toward, and use of, hen as well as possible predictors such as area of residence, age, preferred pronoun, political orientation, and interest in gender issues. Results showed that attitudes toward (...) hen became more positive and that use of hen increased between 2015 and 2018. About half of the population used hen in their communication in 2018, which is a 14-percentage-point increase from 2015. Younger age, she or hen as preferred pronoun, political left-wing orientation, and interest in gender issues predicted a more positive attitude and a more frequent use. Furthermore, the positive change between 2015 and 2018 was larger among younger people, indicating that hen will remain in the Swedish language. The present research is unique in that it follows a gender-fair language initiative during its implementation in representative samples, thereby providing insights for social movements aiming for gender-fair language. We also discuss the theoretical implications of a gender-inclusive pronoun in comparison with past studies on gender-fair language. (shrink)

The building of a railway tunnel through the Hallandsås ridge in the southwest of Sweden resulted in sinking groundwater levels and a toxic spill for the local community. As a result, this highly technological project expanded from the addressing of technological and economic issues of rail traffic and tunnel building to include issues of environmental harm and how to assess and manage the geology of the ridge. A central concern for local residents as well as for the developer has been (...) how to view and interpret the resource of groundwater. This article focuses on groundwater as a boundary object, bordering the domains of the technologists and the local community. In this situation, technological understanding and knowledge confronts an experience-based understanding and a symbolic interpretation of the water resource. (shrink)

Recension av _Kyläkoulu keskellä kaupunkia. Helsingin juutalainen yhteiskoulu 100 vuotta_ [Byskolan mitt i stan. Helsingfors Judiska Samskola 100 år], red. Dan Kantor, Laura Ekholm, Simo Muir, Riitta Nurmi coh Daniel Weintraub.

This book addresses nothingness as not only the untangible presence of an emotional, cultural, social, or even political void that is felt on an existential level, but has some solid foundations in reality. The death of a loved one, the social isolation of an individual, or the culture shock one may experience in another country are examples of situations in which an external sense of absence mirrors an internal psychological and philosophical sense of nothingness. Not much has been explicitly written (...) on nothingness in the history of psychology. On the other hand, nothingness seems to be implicitly embedded in many scholars' work. This duality of explicitly and implicitly expressed ideas about nothingness reveals how psychology finds inspiration in philosophy, and vice versa. The book aims to illustrate how the concept of the presence of absence--nothingness--fills a void in contemporary psychological theorizing. (shrink)

As evaluation of practitioners’ competence is largely based on self-report, accuracy in practitioners’ self-assessment is essential for ensuring high quality treatment-delivery. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between independent observers’ ratings and practitioners’ self-reported treatment integrity ratings of Motivational interviewing. Practitioners were randomized to two types of supervision [i.e., regular institutional group supervision, or individual telephone supervision based on the MI Treatment Integrity code]. The mean age was 43.2 years, and 62.7 percent were females. All sessions (...) were recorded and evaluated with the MITI, and the MI skills were self-assessed with a questionnaire over a period of 12 months. The associations between self-reported and objectively assessed MI skills were overall weak, but increased slightly from baseline to the 12-months assessment. However, the self-ratings from the group that received monthly objective feedback were not more accurate than those participating in regular group supervision. These results expand findings from previous studies and have important implications for assessment of practitioners’ treatment fidelity: Practitioners may learn to improve the accuracy of self-assessment of competence, but to ensure that patients receive intended care, adherence and competence should be assessed objectively. (shrink)

In this article we explore how Swedish welfare politics within health‐care and rehabilitation has opened up a space for nurses’ and occupational therapists’ professional projects. Using historical data, an analysis of the policy‐making process behind welfare programs central to the professionalization of nursing and occupational therapy is presented. The time period covered is, in the case of nurses, the larger part of the twentieth century, while the modern history of occupational therapists first began in the 1940s. Special emphasis is placed (...) on the corporative nature of the Swedish welfare state and the professional strategies utilized by nurses and occupational therapists in their struggle for jurisdiction. In the article, politicization is identified as a core strategy by which female‐dominated welfare state occupations in Sweden have tried to gain influence over the welfare policy‐making process and their occupations’ jurisdiction. (shrink)

Concerning challenges with the social inclusion of children with special educational needs, it is imperative to evaluate teacher interventions that promote social inclusion. This study aimed to investigate the effects of cooperative learning intervention on social inclusion. In addition, it was investigated to what degree CL implementation affected the outcomes. Fifty-six teachers of 958 fifth-grade children were randomly selected to intervention and control groups upon recruitment to the study. The intervention teachers received training and coaching in CL and implemented this (...) approach three to four times a week for 15 weeks. The results showed a significant but small effect of CL on children’s social acceptance, but no significant effect on children’s friendships and perceptions of classroom relationships. The degree of CL implementation had effect on children’s social acceptance, but the effect was not consistent across social acceptance measures as a friend or a groupmate. Thus, it can be concluded that CL, conducted with the length and intensity of this study, may not lead to substantial changes in the social inclusion of children with SEN. In future studies, more focus needs to be devoted to teacher implementation of the CL approach. (shrink)

Early 20th century philosopher Henri Bergson posited an initial push that propelled the diversity of life forward into a varied, novel future: The élan vital, a necessary force or impulse that animated life’s progress and development. His idea had largely been abandoned by mid-century. Even so, much of the conceptual and explanatory work this impulse targeted is yet in want of an explanation. In particular, Bergson’s derelict ideas on evolution addressed three areas that have once again become relevant in the (...) effort to unite evolutionary genetics, biological development, and ecological context : the purposeful nature of individual organisms and their parts; the integrative, holistic, non-linear emergent dynamics seen in evolutionary processes; and how genuine novelty emerges into the universe :422, 2016; Simondon et al. in On the mode of existence of technical objects. Univocal series, Univocal Publishing LLC, Minneapolis, 2017; Bang, in: Winther-Lindqvist, Bang, Valsiner Nothingness: philosophical insights into psychology, Transaction Publishers, Somerset, 2016; Moreno and Mossio in Biological autonomy: a philosophical and theoretical enquiry. History, philosophy and theory of the life sciences, Springer, Dordrecht, 2015). In this paper I argue that Bergson’s ideas may yet be relevant to these questions, and his work warrants a reexamination in light of current problems in evolutionary biology. This is not a call to ‘return’ to Bergson, nevertheless his notions about complexity suggest ways of looking at current biological problems in ways that offer a heuristic insight worth entertaining. Bergson’s Nobel Prize-winning book, Creative Evolution, provided a strikingly prescient early 20th century framework for understanding how Darwinian evolution acts as an engine for generating new forms, University Press of America, Lanham, Bergson 1911). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Decolonizing MemoryLaurence J. Kirmayer*, MD (bio)In this far-reaching essay, Emily Walsh explores the significance of memory for coming to grips with the enduring legacy of colonialism in psychiatry. She argues that "for reasons of self-preservation, racialized individuals should reject collective memories underwritten by colonialism." Psychiatry can enable this process or collude with the structures of domination to silence and disable those who bear the brunt of the colonialist history (...) of violence and its current global incarnations. In this brief commentary, I want to underscore the importance of Walsh's argument, link it to contemporary work in cognitive and social science on the dynamics of memory, and point to some resources for implementing these insights in health services and clinical practice.Memory as Psychological Process, Social Practice and Cultural InstitutionMemory is not simply an individual psychological process of accessing images, stories, and knowledge of the past, but a reconstructive process of building a narrative (Kirmayer, 1996). This narrative is profoundly shaped by available templates, metaphors and models that are provided by the tacit, normative and official histories of society (Hirst, Yamashiro & Coman, 2018). But memory is also shaped by cultural affordances that guide attention and by narrative practices, which depend on other people (Ramstead, Veissière, & Kirmayer, 2017). In effect, remembering is not a matter of reaching down into one's memory archive or sedimented experience, but an embodied and enactive process of thinking with and through others (Laanes & Meretoja, 2021; Veissière, Constant, Ramstead, Friston, & Kirmayer, 2020). Memory then depends on community and on a shared understanding of history and of possible futures through which one can anchor and elaborate one's individual story.A direct consequence is that disconnecting a person from others, disembedding them from their social milieu, will lead to disruptions in memory and in the continuity of self. When the environment is toxic, this severance may sometimes be (partly) beneficial—but it always comes at a cost. Figuring out those costs, making them explicit, and ensuring that those whose history is being suppressed or overwritten by others have a chance to reclaim and write their own, is an ethical and pragmatic imperative.The denial of vital memories (recent or remote, personal or collective) causes fractures in the self that may disorganize the individual, install false consciousness, and cement the exclusionary and disvalued position of colonized, racialized, and [End Page 243] marginalized subjects. This process is not only—or even primarily—about memory. It is part of the structure of everyday life, inscribed in institutions and practices where colonial histories, racism, and economic exploitation are deeply entangled. Representations of the past are part of the way we construe the present and anticipate the future—but not every interpretive frame is a memory; there are structures in and of the moment that condition how we think about ourselves in health and illness and these too convey interests and biases disguised as "just the way things are."Fanon's Politics of Postcolonial Memory and IdentityWalsh offers a reading of aspects of Fanon's philosophy to reveal the workings of colonialism in and through memory. She is concerned with specific subsets of collective memories that are affectively charged and related to the identity of a group (Wertsch & Roediger, 2008). These memories are collective not simply they are shared by or distributed among the members of a group but because they define or constitute the collective itself.History is written largely by the powerful who create dominant or 'master' narratives that serve their own projects of legitimation and self-mystification (Trouillot, 2015; Lindqvist, 2021). But the creation of dominant narratives is not solely the province of those in power. There are many kinds of self-serving collective memory (Baumeister & Hastings, 2013)—from those related to the creation of nation states, which may ignore not only colonized peoples, but all ethnicities, religions or linguistic groups subordinated to the ideals of the dominant group (Anderson, 2006; Gunew, 2013; van Alphen & Carretero, 2015), to other forms of collective identity, even to those created by liberatory movements. These are maintained by institutionalization, ceremonial repetition and reenactment... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.3 (2002) 287-288 [Access article in PDF] Investigating Depersonalization Filip Radovic and Susanna Radovic The comments offered by Morris and Modigh in this issue give us an opportunity to clarify some of the views and topics discussed in our paper.One of Morris' objections is that we on some occasions characterize depersonalization complaints in a way that indicate delusion. Although one of the criteria of depersonalization (...) syndrome is intact reality testing (APA 2000), it is nevertheless the case that patients with depersonalization complaints may at the same time be delusional, a fact that Modigh also points out: "The border between unreality feelings with largely intact reality-testing ability and psychotic disorders with grossly disturbed reality-testing is, however, not absolute and patients with psychotic disorders may of course experience feelings of unreality or depersonalization."Morris is also critical of the idea that feelings of unreality in the quasi-sensory sense (or in sense [a3]) may tempt patients to doubt the reality of the items experienced as unreal. We suggest that the experience of the self or the world as unreal may actually give rise to an impulse to believe that the self or the world does not exist. This, however, need not imply that a person who has such a belief is delusional. For example, consider the following cases, which include patients with intense unreality feelings but who exhibit largely intact reality testing. One of Sierra and Berrios' (2000) patients says: "I have to touch myself to make sure that I have a body and a real existence." Lindqvist (1966, p. 171) describes two cases of the "mirror syndrome," which he recognizes as a typical behavior seen in cases of severe depersonalization. The patients want to confirm that they are real by looking in a mirror. Such cases strongly indicate that a person with otherwise intact reality testing can be so overwhelmed by feelings of unreality that he or she can come to doubt his or her own existence. The reason we do not want to call this state delusional is that the patient constantly tries to compare the experience of reality with some other mark of reality (e.g., by using a mirror), thus indicating that, on a higher cognitive level, he or she still understands that his or her belief may be incorrect. The image in the mirror works as an assurance that the fear of not existing is, after all, just a fear.Merleau-Ponty's (1962) description of Stratton's inverting spectacles experiment is indeed relevant to our analysis. The experiment seems to indicate that the feeling of unreality corresponds to the degree of unfamiliarity with seeing the world upside down. Stratton's subjects report that after a couple of days objects still appear inverted but less unreal than they did before. This seems to suggest that unreal in this circumstance approximates not normal. An inverted world is after some time accepted as normal. (See also note 3 in our paper.)Let us conclude with a few comments on an important methodological issue. Our methodological [End Page 287] approach is not equivalent with a classical ordinary language approach because our main concern is language use in psychiatric contexts. A classical ordinary language analysis aims to explicate how terms actually are used in everyday language; our primary concern is to try to understand the phenomenology underlying descriptions of felt unreality given by patients suffering from depersonalization. However, we do start by looking at the terms from an everyday angle, but this only gives us a coarse approximation of what the depersonalization patient may mean by such expressions. The strange and unpleasant phenomenology of the condition in combination with the variety of characteristic expressions make it likely that the role of unreal in connection with depersonalization complaints is quite different from its use in everyday language. When a person undergoes a depersonalization episode for the first time, he or she encounters a quite new and perhaps unexpected phenomenological reality. When the person attempts to describe these perplexing feelings he or she, naturally, uses terms found in everyday language, but the changed... (shrink)

There are many possible definitions of “technology” and I will discuss some of these in this book. However, in this introduction let me use a definition of Svante Lindqvist who defines technology very intuitively as “those activities, directed towards the satisfaction of human wants, which produce change in the material world.” He says also “the distinction between human “wants” and more limited human “needs” is crucial, for we do not use technology only to satisfy our essential material requirements.” Consequently, (...) from this perspective, a technology that is “broken” could be defined as those activities, directed towards the satisfaction of human wants that are intended to produce changes in the material world that either do not manage to satisfy these wants or do not produce changes in the material world, or both. This is the third edition, updated October 2015. (shrink)