Jonathan Y. Tsou examines and defends positions on central issues in philosophy of psychiatry. The positions defended assume a naturalistic and realist perspective and are framed against skeptical perspectives on biological psychiatry. Issues addressed include the reality of mental disorders; mechanistic and disease explanations of abnormal behavior; definitions of mental disorder; natural and artificial kinds in psychiatry; biological essentialism and the projectability of psychiatric categories; looping effects and the stability of mental disorders; psychiatric classification; and the (...) validity of the DSM's diagnostic categories. The main argument defended by Tsou is that genuine mental disorders are biological kinds with harmful effects. This argument opposes the dogma that mental disorders are necessarily diseases that result from biological dysfunction. Tsou contends that the broader ideal of biological kinds offers a more promising and empirically ascertainable naturalistic standard for assessing the reality of mental disorders and the validity of psychiatric categories. (shrink)

A significant portion of the scholarship in analytic philosophy of psychiatry has been devoted to the problem of what kind of kind psychiatric disorders are. Efforts have included descriptive projects, which aim to identify what psychiatrists in fact refer to when they diagnose, and prescriptive ones, which argue over that to which diagnostic categories should refer. In other words, philosophers have occupied themselves with what I call “diagnostic kinds”. However, the pride of place traditionally given to diagnostic kinds (...) in psychiatric research has recently come under attack, most notably by a recent initiative of the National Institute of Mental Health, the Research Domain Criteria Project, that seeks to exclude diagnostic categories from experimental designs and focus on other sorts of psychiatric kinds. I argue that philosophical accounts privileging diagnostic kinds must respond to this new line of criticism, and conclude that philosophers need to either counter psychiatrists’ growing suspicion about the hegemony of diagnostic categories in the clinic and the laboratory, or join in redirecting their efforts toward the development of robust accounts of other sorts of psychiatric objects and processes. (shrink)

This book explores the central questions and themes lying at the heart of a vibrant area of philosophical inquiry. Aligning core issues in psychiatry with traditional philosophical areas, it presents a focused overview of the historical and contemporary problems dominating the philosophy of psychiatry. -/- Beginning with an introduction to research issues, it addresses what psychiatry is and distinguishes it from other areas of medical practice, other health care professions and psychology. With each section of the (...) companion corresponding to a philosophical subject, contributors systematically relate themes in philosophy of psychiatry to topics in philosophy of mind, phenomenology, philosophy of science, ethics, social and political philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of medicine. Looking ahead to new research directions, chapters address recent issues including the metaphysics of mental disorders, gender and race in psychiatry and psychiatric ethics. -/- Featuring discussion questions, suggestions for further reading and an annotated bibliography, The Bloomsbury Companion to Philosophy of Psychiatry is an accessible survey of the debates and developments in the field suitable for undergraduates in philosophy and professional philosophers new to philosophy of psychiatry. (shrink)

This is a comprehensive resource of original essays by leading thinkers exploring the newly emerging inter-disciplinary field of the philosophy of psychiatry. The contributors aim to define this exciting field and to highlight the philosophical assumptions and issues that underlie psychiatric theory and practice, the category of mental disorder, and rationales for its social, clinical and legal treatment. As a branch of medicine and a healing practice, psychiatry relies on presuppositions that are deeply and unavoidably philosophical. Conceptions (...) of rationality, personhood and autonomy frame our understanding and treatment of mental disorder. Philosophical questions of evidence, reality, truth, science, and values give meaning to each of the social institutions and practices concerned with mental health care. The psyche, the mind and its relation to the body, subjectivity and consciousness, personal identity and character, thought, will, memory, and emotions are equally the stuff of traditional philosophical inquiry and of the psychiatric enterprise. A new research field--the philosophy of psychiatry--began to form during the last two decades of the twentieth century. Prompted by a growing recognition that philosophical ideas underlie many aspects of clinical practice, psychiatric theorizing and research, mental health policy, and the economics and politics of mental health care, academic philosophers, practitioners, and philosophically trained psychiatrists have begun a series of vital, cross-disciplinary exchanges. This volume provides a sampling of the research yield of those exchanges. Leading thinkers in this area, including clinicians, philosophers, psychologists, and interdisciplinary teams, provide original discussions that are not only expository and critical, but also a reflection of their authors' distinctive and often powerful and imaginative viewpoints and theories. All the discussions break new theoretical ground. As befits such an interdisciplinary effort, they are methodologically eclectic, and varied and divergent in their assumptions and conclusions; together, they comprise a significant new exploration, definition, and mapping of the philosophical aspects of psychiatric theory and practice. (shrink)

Essential Philosophy of Psychiatry is a concise introduction to the growing field of philosophy of psychiatry. Divided into three main aspects of psychiatric clinical judgement, values, meanings and facts, it examines the key debates about mental health care, and the philosophical ideas and tools needed to assess those debates, in six chapters. In addition to outlining the state of play, Essential Philosophy of Psychiatry presents a coherent and unified approach across the different debates, characterized (...) by a rejection of reductionism and an emphasis on the ineliminability of uncodified skilled judgement. The first part, Values, outlines the debate about whether diagnosis of mental illness is essentially value-laden and argues that the prospects for reducing illness or disease to plainly factual matters are poor. It also explains the important role of skilled contextual judgement, rather than a principles-based deduction, in ethical judgement. The second part, Meanings, examines the central role of understanding and a shared first person perspective, both against attempts to reduce meaning to basic information-processing mechanisms and to explain away the difficulties of understanding psychopathology in recent models of delusion. The third part, Facts, shows the importance of uncodified clinical judgements, both in assessing the validity of psychiatric taxonomy and in the application of Evidence Based Medicine. Despite advances in the codifaction of practice and operationalism of diagnosis, an element of judgement remains in the assessment both of what, at one level, is good evidence for diagnosis and treatment and what, at a higher level, is good evidence for the validity of classification overall. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Postmodern Assumptions of Philosophy of PsychiatryThe author reports no conflicts of interest.This paper makes claims for relevance of philosophy to psychopathology, as inspired in part by the work of Karl Jaspers. Yet there is no such thing as philosophy, in a general sense; there are philosophies, or as Jaspers would prefer, there is philosophizing (Ehrlich & George, 1994; Jaspers, 1951). Jaspers' approach to philosophy was (...) akin to Freud's approach to psychology: the goal was to make unconscious assumptions conscious. The unconscious assumption in the present paper is that there is such a thing as philosophy, which could then be useful for psychopathology. In effect, the author is probably meaning academic philosophy, or mainstream thinking in current philosophy of psychiatry. If that is the meaning, then Jaspers' question would be: What are the unconscious underlying assumptions of modern academic philosophy of psychiatry? The author's paper does not ask that question. But if we do, my answer would be that current mainstream philosophy of psychiatry has a basic worldview, another concept very central to Jaspers' thinking (Rindermann, 2021). Its worldview is postmodernist relativism about truth and skepticism about science, especially biology as applied to psychiatry. This unconscious assumption in modern philosophy of psychiatry is a major impediment in any benefits it might provide to psychiatry and psychopathology, as will be explained in the rest of this commentary.The paper refers to major depressive disorder (MDD) without appreciating that the term itself makes assumptions which the paper wishes to argue should be in the province of philosophy to analyze. The term MDD is not the same as depression, although the paper synonymizes the two. This synonym is an unanalyzed assumption, namely, that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) diagnostic system validly defines psychopathology. It clearly does not, for reasons that modern philosophy of psychiatry has not accurately analyzed (Ghaemi, 2014).About a decade ago, when DSM-5 was being developed, colleagues in the field of philosophy of psychiatry had worked for decades on psychiatric diagnosis, and there was initial hope that the time had come for an impact (Kendler et al., 2008). The leader of the prior edition of DSM was unhappy [End Page 17] with the fifth revision. A set of essays were published where philosophers and psychiatrists engaged the former DSM leader about psychiatric diagnosis (Frances, 2013). His response, with a somewhat derisive reference to "philosophyland," was eye opening to me. He explicitly stated that DSM revisions were not based on science or facts, but on "pragmatism," on the beliefs of DSM leaders about what was best for the profession or society. In short, it was admitted that DSM was a social construction, just as postmodern thinking had said about psychiatric diagnosis since Foucault. Yet this admission was made unconsciously; DSM leadership does not use that phrase, nor does it understand its conceptual foundations. Surprisingly to me, colleagues in the world of philosophy and psychiatry also failed to make the obvious connection, or if they did, they seemed to have little problem with it (Phillips et al., 2012). Social constructionism was their worldview too.In effect, philosophy of psychiatry had nothing to provide; it did not analyze or critique the philosophical worldview of DSM leadership; it shared that worldview and participated in it (Kendler, 2013).The result, in my view, is that mainstream philosophy of psychiatry has failed in the role which it could have played, the role of making the unconscious postmodern assumptions of psychiatry conscious, and criticizing those assumptions. Instead, it applauded them.My broader critique of mainstream philosophy of psychiatry gets played out in papers such as this one in relation to the DSM term MDD, which should be dropped because it is not a scientifically sound term; it has many conceptual and scientific falsehoods within it, which both a philosophical analysis and a scientific analysis would demonstrate.The term MDD was invented in the DSM-III process in the late 1970s to get votes for passage of that third revision by the American Psychiatric Association in 1980 (Decker, 2013). It literally was a social construction. To the extent that it had any scientific basis, it had its roots in the... (shrink)

This is a comprehensive resource of original essays by leading thinkers exploring the newly emerging interdisciplinary field of the philosophy of psychiatry. The contributors aim to define this exciting field and to highlight the philosophical assumptions and issues that underlie psychiatric theory and practice, the category of mental disorder, and rationales for its social, clinical, and legal treatment.

Despite how he begins, suggesting that it is somehow a problem for me that I think "there is such a thing as philosophy, which could then be useful for psychopathology," ultimately it is clear that the possibility of philosophy is not the issue for Ghaemi. Rather, his issue is with academic philosophy of psychiatry, as he sees it, and with my failure to ask what underlying assumptions typically operate in it.I do not dispute that someone like (...) Jaspers would want to ask such a question, nor do I dispute that it is, in general, a perfectly good question. But Ghaemi thinks that my paper is missing out on something by not posing it. The reason he thinks this is because he thinks my paper is an instance of a pattern in the discipline against which he evidently has an axe to grind. In particular, he thinks philosophy in general should be more attendant to the ways in which Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) categories are (problematically) socially constructed. The fact that philosophers have failed to critically point this out allegedly shows philosophy of psychiatry's— and my—unexamined sympathy with the postmodern tendencies—understood as tendencies toward "relativism about truth" and "skepticism about science"—of psychiatry itself. This is odd for a number of reasons, especially in the present context. Firstly, I am not presently in a position to exhaustively defend all of philosophy of psychiatry on the charge of 'postmodernism,' or on the charge of failure to critically engage with the DSM, but it is worth simply stating that I find these to be rather patently unsubstantiated charges. Prominent works that falsify the latter and easily come to mind are by Tsou (2011), Cooper (2004, 2007), Horwitz and Wakefield (2007), Murphy (2006), Poland and von Eckhardt (2013), and Lalumera (2016). Of these, only Lalumera is interested in defending a DSM-style descriptivism (which perhaps Ghaemi would call a kind of "social constructionism"), but even she limits her defense of DSM categories to their role as reference-fixing representations. It is also true that Tsou's paper is an argument that the practical considerations which go into shaping the DSM categories sometimes represent values that permissibly operate in psychiatry. Perhaps this could be construed as a kind of social constructionism as well, and presumably Ghaemi would disagree with it, but no one here is guilty of a failure to engage critically with the DSM and its history. Further, whichever position is taken by these theorists on whether the DSM does, or even one day could, cut nature at its joints, or whether some of the values that shape its construction do so permissibly or impermissibly, one's acceptance or rejection of relativism about truth is an entirely logically independent matter. (shrink)

The past two decades have seen a surge in cross-disciplinary work in philosophy and psychiatry. Much of this work is necessarily abstract whilst those working in the area are aware of the necessity of relating the theoretical and conceptual work to the vagaries of day-to-day practice. But given the diverse methods and aims of philosophy and psychiatry, crossing the ‘communication gap’ between the two disciplines is easier said than done. In this article different methods of bridging (...) this gap are presented and commented upon. A number of research studies are reviewed with an eye to the potential they display to develop interdisciplinary theory. An empirical approach to philosophy of practice with special attention to ordinary language use is proposed as a fruitful may forward. (shrink)

Abstract Recently, some philosophers of psychiatry (viz., Rachel Cooper and Dominic Murphy) have analyzed the issue of psychiatric classification. This paper expands upon these analyses and seeks to demonstrate that a consideration of the history of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) can provide a rich and informative philosophical perspective for critically examining the issue of psychiatric classification. This case is intended to demonstrate the importance of history for philosophy of psychiatry, and more generally, (...) the potential benefits of historically-informed approaches to philosophy of science. (shrink)

The background for this special issue is the multidisciplinary workshop "Minds, Models and Mechanisms: Current Trends in Philosophy of Psychiatry" which was held at Saarland University in April 2021. Though we had to switch to an online format due to the pandemic, the discussions at the event have been extremely inspiring. It brought together experts from diverse disciplines, like clinical psychiatry, neuroscience, computational modelling, philosophy of mind and cognition, and philosophy of science. Joining forces, researchers (...) from these disciplines presented their ideas on the subject. In the aftermath of the workshop, the organizers issued an open call for contributions. After a rigorous review process five papers made it into the final issue, each making an original contribution to the field. (shrink)

This chapter examines the history of philosophy of psychology and philosophy of psychiatry as subfields of philosophy of science that emerged in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. The chapter also surveys related literatures that developed in psychology and psychiatry. Philosophy of psychology (or philosophy of cognitive science) has been a well-established subfield of philosophy of mind since the 1990s and 2000s. This field of philosophy of psychology is narrowly focused (...) on issues in cognitive psychology and cognitive science. Compared to the thriving subfield of philosophy of cognitive science, there has been a lack of corresponding interest among philosophers of science in broader methodological questions about different paradigms and fields of study in psychology. These broader methodological questions about psychology have been addressed in the field of theoretical psychology, which is a subfield of psychology that materialized in the 1980s and 1990s. Philosophy of psychiatry emerged as a subfield of philosophy of science in the mid-2000s. Compared to philosophy of psychology, the philosophy of psychiatry literature in philosophy of science engaged with issues examined in an older and more interdisciplinary tradition of philosophy of psychiatry that developed after the 1960s. The participation of philosophers of science in the literature on theoretical psychology, by contrast, has been limited. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 11.4 (2004) 357-359 [Access article in PDF] A Madness for the Philosophy of Psychiatry John Z. Sadler His enthusiasm brimming over with the rich set of ideas and problems he has discovered, Louis Charland's essay on identity, ethics, and the Internet should be grist for the philosophy of psychiatry mill for years. Indeed, a brief commentary cannot answer the (...) many questions raised by his paper. In response, I would like to focus on two general issues for this essay. Labels, Diagnoses, Reference, Experiences Many psychiatrists will take issue with Charland's use of the term label in reference to mental disorder concepts in this paper. I did not, but his relatively uncritical use of the labels and labeling terms in his essay prompts me to unpack some concepts that lurk behind the many other conceptual issues raised here. Psychiatric "labels" and "labeling" have a derogatory sense for many psychiatrists, because they are associated with a virulent antipsychiatry temperament dating back to the 1960s, at least in the United States (Sadler 2003). For many clinicians (as well as others) labeling implies that there is nothing more to psychiatric diagnosis and "mental illness" than the names given to various sorts of human diversity. This sort of psychiatric nominalism, the viewpoint goes, serves to pigeonhole people for the purposes, primarily, of political control or power. Charland's own viewpoint is more subtle than this, illustrated by his discussion of Hacking's "looping effects" and the related idea that social factors are influential in the manifestations, even causation, of mental disorders, but are not exhaustive in explaining mental disorders. However, because the whole matter of social construction of clinical phenomena is at the heart of Charland's discussion, further consideration of this metaphysical territory is warranted.The notion of a mental disorder concept as "label" betrays little about what, substantively, mental disorders are. A label on a can of peas tells us little, ultimately, about the nature of the contents; indeed, it is only a clue. When we shift labeling from a can of peas to a person—a self—then such a shallow clue to the "contents" of a person is an offensive simplification of a person's identity and selfhood. Hence the railing against psychiatric labeling in the 1960s through today.The general goals for psychiatric diagnosis and classification in systems like DSM-IV is are multiple, but at minimum, such denotations of clinical conditions are intended to advance the generation of knowledge about the conditions as well as provide a "shorthand" for clinicians in communicating about and understanding patients' conditions. How successful these diagnostic classification systems are for these and other purposes is a discussion for another time, but the [End Page 357] point here is that some sort of method of characterizing people's distresses is a precondition for understanding and explaining such distresses. The scientific processes of validation of psychiatric categories, at core, are to ensure that, as Gorenstein notes (1992), our clinical concepts are not empty, self-fulfilling prophecies, but rather refer to other, hopefully predictable, features of the patient's distress. Such validation of clinical "constructs" is the basis for developing and testing specific treatments, as well as understanding more richly and deeply the clinical phenomenon. To have a label, then, under this view, is to have an empty nominalization, which is offensive and scientifically vapid. To have a diagnostic construct—a disorder—is to have a concept which empirically refers to, as Paul Meehl put it, a "nomological network" of predictable, lawlike, implications (Sadler 2004a).However, as Charland, Hacking, and others have noted, the reflexivity of the human self and our ultimately crude ways of characterizing selves leads to a serious problem, even for the most rigorously validated psychological categories. That problem is the changeability of the self, the capacity of people to remake themselves according to their own ideas along with the sociocultural ether of ideas that surrounds us all. This means that our understanding of mental disorders, both as aggregates of features, and well as individual patients over time, are "moving targets," the... (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyze, from a philosophical perspective, the scientific robustness of the construct of psychopathy as measured by the Psychopathy Checklist Revised that was developed by Robert Hare (1991; 2003). The scientific robustness and validity of classifications are topics of many debates in philosophy of science and philosophy of psychiatry more specifically. The main problem consists in establishing whether scientific classifications reflect natural kinds where the concept of a natural kind refers to (...) the existence of some objective divisions in nature that do not depend exclusively on subjective judgments of the classifier. The construct of psychopathy is especially interesting since the diagnosis of psychopathy has substantial social consequences. In the light of the recent debates regarding the problem of natural kinds in philosophy of psychiatry, we advocate the following distinction between two types of scientific classifications: natural and practical kinds. Natural kinds refer to those categories that are united by common causal mechanisms or properties. Practical kinds refer to categories that fulfill some practical classificatory goals such as prediction. We argue that the construct of psychopathy can fulfill the role of a practical kind. In addition, we contend that our current scientific knowledge about psychopathy does not allow us to conclude that this category is a natural kind. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on a critical analysis of particular theoretical frameworks in psychiatry in their interplay with issues of race and gender. Analysis shows that theoretical perspective is one of the most important factors in play in working toward the goal of eliminating racism and sexism from psychiatry. To this end, four types of theoretical frameworks are considered: naturalism, social constructionism, relativism and antirelativism, and phenomenology. Also considered are efforts to show the compatibility of two different frameworks. Each (...) framework is explored and critiqued regarding its potential to expose and correct racist and sexist attitudes that are incorporated into research and treatment in psychiatry. Included are discussions of the relevance of realism and antirealism in evaluating theoretical frameworks, as well as evaluation of theoretical claims regarding the roles of biology, genetics, the medical model, and culture in either sustaining or counteracting racism and sexism in psychiatry, including psychoanalysis. Finally, Husserlian phenomenology is suggested as a philosophical framework for psychiatry that can transcend the limitations of the other frameworks discussed. Phenomenology enables psychiatry, including psychology and psychoanalysis, to constitute itself as a science that transcends both constructionist relativism and naturalistic reductionism. (shrink)

There has been a recent growth in philosophy of psychiatry that draws heavily (although not exclusively) on analytic philosophy with the aim of a better understanding of psychiatry through an analysis of some of its fundamental concepts. This 'new philosophy of psychiatry' is an addition to both analytic philosophy and to the broader interpretation of mental health care. Nevertheless, it is already a flourishing philosophical field. One indication of this is the new Oxford (...) University Press series International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry seven volumes of which (by Bolton and Hill; Bracken and Thomas; Fulford, Morris, Sadler, and Stanghellini; Hughes, Louw, and Sabat; Pickering; Sadler; and Stanghellini) are examined in this critical review. (shrink)

_The first part called the Preamble tackles: (a) the issues of silence and speech, and life and disease; (b) whether we need to know some or all of the truth, and how are exact science and philosophical reason related; (c) the phenomenon of Why, How, and What; (d) how are mind and brain related; (e) what is robust eclecticism, empirical/scientific enquiry, replicability/refutability, and the role of diagnosis and medical model in psychiatry; (f) bioethics and the four principles of beneficence, (...) non-malfeasance, autonomy, and justice; (g) the four concepts of disease, illness, sickness, and disorder; how confusion is confounded by these concepts but clarity is imperative if we want to make sense out of them; and how psychiatry is an interim medical discipline. The second part called The Issues deals with: (a) the concepts of nature and nurture; the biological and the psychosocial; and psychiatric disease and brain pathophysiology; (b) biology, Freud and the reinvention of psychiatry; (c) critics of psychiatry, mind-body problem and paradigm shifts in psychiatry; (d) the biological, the psychoanalytic, the psychosocial and the cognitive; (e) the issues of clarity, reductionism, and integration; (f) what are the fool-proof criteria, which are false leads, and what is the need for questioning assumptions in psychiatry. The third part is called Psychiatric Disorder, Psychiatric Ethics, and Psychiatry Connected Disciplines. It includes topics like (a) psychiatric disorder, mental health, and mental phenomena; (b) issues in psychiatric ethics; (c) social psychiatry, liaison psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine, forensic psychiatry, and neuropsychiatry. The fourth part is called Antipsychiatry, Blunting Creativity, etc. It includes topics like (a) antipsychiatry revisited; (b) basic arguments of antipsychiatry, Szasz, etc.; (c) psychiatric classification and value judgment; (d) conformity, labeling, and blunting creativity. The fifth part is called The Role of Philosophy, Religion, and Spirituality in Psychiatry. It includes topics like (a) relevance of philosophy to psychiatry; (b) psychiatry, religion, spirituality, and culture; (c) ancient Indian concepts and contemporary psychiatry; (d) Indian holism and Western reductionism; (e) science, humanism, and the nomothetic-idiographic orientation. The last part, called Final Goal, talks of the need for a grand unified theory. The whole discussion is put in the form of refutable points._. (shrink)

In their recent paper, Natalie Banner and Tim Thornton evaluate seven volumes of the Oxford University Press series “International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry,” an international book series begun in 2003 focusing on the emerging interdisciplinary field at the interface of philosophy and psychiatry. According to Natalie Banner and Tim Thornton, the series represents a clear indication that the interdisciplinary field of philosophy of psychiatry has been flourishing lately. Philosophers and psychiatrists face a “new (...) philosophy of psychiatry”. However, the optimism which the “new” philosophy of psychiatry celebrates is precisely the exiling of philosophy from the foundations of psychiatry. The 150 year old belief that psychopathology cannot do without philosophical reflection has virtually disappeared from common psychiatric education and daily clinical practice. Though the discipline of psychiatry is particularly suited to contributions from philosophy, the impact of philosophy on psychiatry nowadays remains limited. With some exceptions, philosophical papers are embedded in a philosophical context inscrutable to ordinary psychiatrists. Much current philosophical work is perceived by psychiatrists as negativistic. I would encourage the field of psychiatry to incorporate once again basic philosophical attitudes which render possible true dialogue with philosophy and enrich both disciplines. The views developed here should not discredit the value and importance of Natalie Banner and Tim Thornton’s paper and the excellent series “International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry.” As Jaspers said “Everybody inclined to disregard philosophy will be overwhelmed by philosophy in an unperceived way”. (shrink)

A basic question of philosophy of psychiatry is “what is madness (mental illness, mental disorder…)?” Contemporary thinkers err by framing the problem as one of defining madness in contrast with sanity. For the Late Modern theorist of madness, the problem was not one of defining madness in contrast with sanity, but in contrast with “idiocy”—the apparent diminution or abolition of one’s reasoning power. This altered reading of the problem has an important consequence. For what distinguishes madness from idiocy (...) is not the failure, absence, or lack of reason, but its presence—albeit in a perverse and mutated form. For the Late Modern theorist, madness was always, by its very nature, infused with reason. This “infusion” of madness by reason has two consequences for philosophy of psychiatry today: it reframes the project of defining “mental disorder,” and it provides intellectual scaffolding for the emerging movement known as Mad Pride, mad resistance, or mad activism. (shrink)

Nature and Narrative is the launch volume in a new series of books entitled International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry. Nature(representing interest in the causes of a problem) and Narrative (for understanding its meanings) will introduce the field and the series, by touching on a range of issue relevant to this interdisciplinary 'border country'.

Nature and Narrative is the launch volume in a new series of books entitled International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry. The series will aim to build links between the sciences and humanities in psychiatry. Our ability to decipher mental disorders depends to a unique extent on both the sciences and the humanities. Science provides insight into the 'causes' of a problem, enabling us to formulate an 'explanation', and the humanities provide insight into its 'meanings' and helps with (...) our 'understanding'. Psychiatry, if it is to develop as a balanced discipline, must draw on input from both of these spheres. Nature (for causes) and Narrative (for meanings) will help define the series as a whole by touching on a range of issues relevant to this 'border country'. With contributions from an international star-studded cast, representing the field of psychiatry, psychology and philosophy, this volume will set the scene for this new interdisciplinary field. This will be of interest to all those with practical experience of mental health issues, whether as providers or as users/consumers of services, as well as to philosophers, social scientists, and bioethicists. (shrink)

The article provides historical and philosophical reconstruction of the emergence and development of the philosophy of psychiatry. The main cases of interaction between philosophy and psychiatry in the context of the development of the history of philosophical thought from antiquity to the present are demonstrated. The key points of interaction between philosophy and psychiatry from Antiquity to the middle of the twentieth century are revealed. The phenomenon of existential-phenomenological psychiatry is described as one (...) of the first attempts of thorough interaction between psychiatry and philosophy. Its main task is defined – to describe the experience of mental illness. Which is an important and necessary task to raise awareness of the impact of mental disorders on people's lives, attempts to reduce stigma. Describing this type of experience creates a unique window into understanding a person with a mental disorder, and illustrates the common and distinctive features of the experience of people with different psychiatric nosologies. These studies provide a deeper understanding of how mental pathology impoverishes a person's relationship with themselves and their community, with the subsequent use of the findings and humanization of psychiatric practice. The prerequisites for the emergence of modern philosophy of psychiatry, in particular the cognitive revolution, the development of philosophy of science, the development of analytical and continental philosophy, in particular phenomenology, existential philosophy, hermeneutics, are determined. The main directions of research in the philosophy of psychiatry are determined. Which are aimed at clarifying the meaning of terms related to mental illness and describing the phenomenon of mental illness itself, analyzing and clarifying those definitions that are directly used in clinical practice and the basis of psychiatric knowledge, as such, to highlight the prerequisites behind certain theoretical positions of psychiatry, to describe the nature of mental illness. (shrink)

Mental health research and care in the twenty first century faces a series of conceptual and ethical challenges arising from unprecedented advances in the neurosciences, combined with radical cultural and organisational change. The Oxford Textbook of Philosophy of Psychiatry is aimed at all those responding to these challenges, from professionals in health and social care, managers, lawyers and policy makers; service users, informal carers and others in the voluntary sector; through to philosophers, neuroscientists and clinical researchers. Organised around (...) a series of case studies in five key topic areas - concepts of disorder, the philosophical history of psychopathology, philosophy of science, ethics and philosophical value theory, and philosophy of mind - the book provides a detailed introduction to the field and a framework for study and skill development. Each case study is supported by selected readings from both philosophy and mental health, thinking skills exercises, self-test questions, key learning points and detailed guides to further reading. There is an introduction for philosophers to classification and descriptive psychopathology, and for practitioners to philosophical methods (including logic). The philosophical topics covered include philosophical methods (analytic and Continental); phenomenology, hermeneutics and existentialism, logical empiricism and its successors; idealism and realism; reasons and causes; and modern theories of mind and brain, free will and personal identity. Topics from mental health include psychiatry and 'anti-psychiatry'; Jaspers' psychopathology and the new neurosciences; the future of psychiatric classifications; strengths-based approaches, recovery practice, social inclusion and diversity; and key topics in psychopathology, such as delusion, autism, disorders of volition, thought insertion and other experiences in schizophrenia. The Oxford Textbook of Philosophy of Psychiatry aims to secure the skills-base of the discipline by bringing philosophers closer to the realities of practice in mental health, and mental health practitioners closer to the resources of philosophy as a partner to the sciences in responding to the challenges of twenty-first century mental health and social care. (shrink)

"Psychiatry and Philosophy of Science" explores conceptual issues in psychiatry from the perspective of analytic philosophy of science. Through an examination of those features of psychiatry that distinguish it from other sciences - for example, its contested subject matter, its particular modes of explanation, its multiple different theoretical frameworks, and its research links with big business - Rachel Cooper explores some of the many conceptual, metaphysical and epistemological issues that arise in psychiatry. She shows (...) how these pose interesting challenges for the philosopher of science while also showing how ideas from the philosophy of science can help to solve conceptual problems within psychiatry. Cooper's discussion ranges over such topics as the nature of mental illnesses, the treatment decisions and diagnostic categories of psychiatry, the case-history as a form of explanation, how psychiatry might be value-laden, the claim that psychiatry is a multi-paradigm science, the distortion of psychiatric research by pharmaceutical industries, as well as engaging with the fundamental question whether the mind is reducible to something at the physical level. "Psychiatry and Philosophy of Science" demonstrates that cross-disciplinary contact between philosophy of science and psychiatry can be immensely productive for both subjects and it will be required reading for mental health professionals and philosophers alike. (shrink)

The links between Descartes logito and the schizophrenic symptom of "inserted thoughts" are used to illustrate the potential for two- way exchange between philosophy and psychiatry. Patients suffering thought insertion have thoughts in their heads, which "they" are thinking, but which they experience as the thoughts "of someone else": "I think therefore someone else is". Philosophical work on personal identity helps to clarify the remarkable phenomenological features of thought insertion: conversely, thought insertion challenges philosophical theories of personal identity. (...) More generally, future cross- disciplinary work will require a strong academic infrastructure, including training and research. (shrink)

Psychiatry is unique in medicine in being on the border between science and the humanities. Science provides insight into the 'causes' of a problem, enabling us to formulate an 'explanation', while the humanities provide insight into its 'meanings' and helps with our 'understanding'. The new interdisciplinary field of 'philosophy of psychiatry' has developed to explore the range of issues relevant to this border country. The Oxford Textbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry is a unique textbook which (...) provides a detailed introduction to the field, a framework for study and skill development, and an overview of current research. It focuses on case studies in 5 key topic areas. Each case study is supported by selected readings from both philosophy and mental health, thinking skills exercises, self-test questions, key learning points and detailed guides to further reading. (shrink)