Synopses & Reviews
Responding to the work of previous critics of psychiatry, who have associated its undue dominance with both a modern scientific paradigm and political factors, Jenifer Booth puts forward a theoretical challenge based on MacIntyre`s work on Aquinas and Aristotle, but adding the museum and assembly as conceptual thinking tools.
MacIntyre`s work on practices, tradition-constituted enquiry, Marxist ideology and Kuhn are all used in putting forward a pre-modern view of knowledge. The feminist philosophy of Luce Irigaray widens the project to include psychotherapy. Booth puts forward a workable and kind version of psychiatric medicine which sets the work of the mental health service user movement in context.
This book should be of value to anyone who has ever wondered why doctors have so much power or who has thought that spiritual and social factors should have more weight in medicine.
It will be of interest to moral philosophers, theologians and feminist theologians, philosophers of medicine and museums studies professionals alike.
Review
To come
Synopsis
The author applies modified versions of pre-modern philosophy (including Aristotle and Aquinas) to psychiatry, arguing that the work of the Aristotelian philosopher, Christian and former Marxist, Alasdair MacIntyre is ideally placed to bring about a transformation of psychiatry from its current captivity to the modern scientific technical paradigm.
About the Author
Jenifer Booth is an independent scholar. She has an MA in Psychiatry, Philosophy and Society from the University of Sheffield, UK an MLitt in philosophy (with distinction) from the University of Dundee and a PhD in philosophy from the University of Durham. She has worked with the mental health service user movement in Lothian.
Table of Contents
Contents
List of Abbreviations in References
List of Illustrations
Declaration
Acknowledgements
1. An Outline of the Problem
2. Why Macintyre`s Philosophy Can Address This Situation
3. The Contemporary Aristotelian Museum as a Way of 'Re-Seeing' Knowledge
4. How 'The Many' Can Be Authoritative. 'The Many' Start to Contribute to the Practice
5. Macintyre`S Original Model Adjusted to Take Account of Patiency and Dissent
6. Psychiatric Medicine: Performing Tradition-Constituted Enquiry on the Tradition of the Psychiatrists
7. Collective Advocacy: The Mentally Ill Start to Contribute to a Practice
8. Using Irigaray's Philosophy to Overcome the Technical Paradigm in Psychotherapy
9. Psychiatry as a Nurturing Practice
10. Conclusions
Bibliography
Index