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(More customer reviews)This book represents a significant leap in our understanding of mental disorder. If we existed in a world where society was guided by the latest efforts of sharp thinkers (rather than cost/benefit analysis) then we should be seeing major changes in the existing insitutions that provide care for people with 'mental health problems'. The book begins with the following thesis: Intentional (meaningful) mental states are causal as they can be used in the explanation / prediction of action. They attend to this thesis in the first part of the book. These mental states are not reducible to physical states, rather they are 'encoded' in physical states in the brain, something akin to how information for producing a particular phenotype is encoded in the DNA molecule. Their account solves the following problem: Ever since Karl Jaspers set the limits of understanding, 'true madness' has been excluded from the domain of meaning and relegated to that of biological dysfunction. Thoughout this book Bolton and Hill show how in biology as well as in psychology there are many possiblities for disorder in the absence of any physical dysruption. Disorder can be envisaged as occuring from the intentional stance only if intentional mental states can be construed as having causal power. Their account drives meaning back into previously 'meaningless' phenomena.
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Philosophical ideas about the mind, brain, and behavior can seem theoretical and unimportant when placed alongside the urgent questions of mental distress and disorder. However, there is a need to give direction to attempts to answer these questions. On the one hand a substantial research effort in going into the investigation of brain processes and the development of drug treatments for psychiatric disorders, and on the other, a wide range of psychotherapies is becoming available to adults and children with mental health problems. These two strands reflect traditional distinctions between mind and body, and causal as opposed to meaningful explanations of behavior. In this book, which has been written for psychiatrists, psychologists, philosophers, and others in related fields, the authors propose a radical re-interpretation of these traditional distinctions. Throughout the discussions philosophical theories are brought to bear on the particular questions of the explanation of behaviors, the nature of mental causation, and eventually the origins of major disorders including depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, and personality disorder.First published in 1996, this volume played an important role in bridging the gap between philosophy and psychiatry, and introducing those in psychiatry to philosophical ideas somewhat neglected in their field. Completely updated, the new edition of this acclaimed volume draws on the strengths of the first edition, and will be a central text in the burgeoning field of philosophy of psychiatry.
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