Description
Book SynopsisThis 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 tra
Trade Review"The publication of this book is a major event in the ongoing development of the field....a significant accomplishment...it simultaneously represents, announces, and consolidates the arrival of an exciting new field."--Metapsychology Online Book Reviews
"Highly recommended."--Choice
Table of ContentsPART I - PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND NORMALCY ; PART 2 - EPISTEMOLOGY OF PRACTICE ; PART 3 - NORMS, VALUES AND ETHICS ; PART 4 - THEORETICAL MODELS ; PART 5 - CIRCUMSCRIBING MENTAL DISORDER