Synopses & Reviews
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 provides insight into its 'meanings' and helps with our 'understanding'. Psychiatry, if it 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 range of issues relevant to this 'border country'. With contributions form 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 members of the mental health team as well as to philosophers, social scientists, and bioethicists.
Review
"The essays as a whole are incisive and rigorous analyses that offer a fresh perspective, revealing that there is much to be considered in what for many of us in the mental health profession has become a matter of routine.... In summary, this is a challenging and fascinating work." --The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
"An excellent collection from thinkers in countries long steeped in philosophy, this book offers insight and intellectual challenge giving a broader context to the work we do with persons who experience mental suffering."--Doody's
Table of Contents
1. Past improbable, future probable: an introduction to nature and narrative,
Fulford, Morris, Sadler and StanghelliniSection 1 -Recycling History?
2. Towards a psyche for psychiatry, Meares - Australia
Section 2 - A New Kind of Philosophy
3. Wittgenstein's method and psychoanalysis, Baker - UK
4. How can a mind be sick?, Matthews - UK
Section 3 - A New Kind of Ethics
5. Psychiatry and the law, Robinson - USA
6. Understanding dementia: a hermeneutic perspective, Widdershoven - The Netherlands
Section 4 - A New Kind of Psychology
7. Meaning and causal explanations in the behavioural sciences, Bolton - UK
8. Subjectivity and the possibility of psychiatry, Harre - UK
9. Form and content: the role of discourse in mental disorder, Gillett - New Zealand
10. Meaning and causes of delusions, Musalek - Austria
Section 5 - A New Kind of Phenomenology
11. The phenomenology of body dysmorphic disorder: a Sartrean analysis, Morris - UK
12. Putting the epoche into practice: schizophrenic experience as illustrating the phenomenological exploration of consciousness, Depraz - France
13. How can the phenomenological-anthropological approach contribute to diagnosis and classification in psychiatry?, Kraus - Germany
14. Incomprehensibility, Heinimaa - Finland
Section 6 - A New Kind of Science
15. Anxiety - animal reactions and the embodiment of meaning, Glas - The Netherlands
16. Linguistic markers of recovery: semantic, syntactic and pragmatic changes in the use of first person pronouns in the course of psychotherapy, van Staden - South Africa
Section 7 - Future Possible?
17. Magic, science and equality of human wits, Rossi - Italy