Notes on a Few Issues in the Philosophy of Psychiatry
Journal Title: Mens Sana Monographs - Year 2009, Vol 7, Issue 1
Abstract
The first part called the [i]Preamble[/i] 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 scienceand 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 beneÞ cence, 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 of these concepts; and how psychiatry is an interim medical discipline. The second part called [i]The Issues [/i]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-bodyproblem 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 [i]Psychiatric Disorder, Psychiatric Ethics, and Psychiatry Connected Disciplines. [/i]It includes topics like (a) psychiatric disorder, mental health, and mental phenomena; (b) issues in psychiatric ethics; (c) social psychiatry, liaisonpsychiatry, psychosomatic medicine, forensic psychiatry, and neuropsychiatry. The fourth part is called [i]Antipsychiatry, Blunting Creativity, etc.[/i] It includes topics like (a) antipsychiatry revisited; (b) basic arguments of antipsychiatry, Szasz, etc.; (c) psychiatricclassification and value judgment; (d) conformity, labeling, and blunting creativity. The fifth part is called [i]The Role of Philosophy, Religion, and Spirituality in Psychiatry.[/i] 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 idiographicorientation. The last part, called [i]Final Goal[/i], talks of the need for a grand unified theory.The whole discussion is put in the form of refutable points.
Authors and Affiliations
Ajai Singh, Shakuntala Singh
Keywords
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