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Cover image of The Concepts of Psychiatry
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The Concepts of Psychiatry

A Pluralistic Approach to the Mind and Mental Illness

S. Nassir Ghaemi, M.D., M.P.H.
foreword by Paul R. McHugh, M.D.

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Because most psychiatric illnesses are complex phenomena, no single method or approach is sufficient to explain them or the experiences of persons who suffer from them. In The Concepts of Psychiatry S. Nassir Ghaemi, M.D. argues that the discipline of psychiatry can therefore be understood best from a pluralistic perspective. Grounding his approach in the works of Paul McHugh, Phillip Slavney, Leston Havens, and others, Ghaemi incorporates a more explicitly philosophical discussion of the strengths of a pluralistic model and the weaknesses of other approaches, such as biological or...

Because most psychiatric illnesses are complex phenomena, no single method or approach is sufficient to explain them or the experiences of persons who suffer from them. In The Concepts of Psychiatry S. Nassir Ghaemi, M.D. argues that the discipline of psychiatry can therefore be understood best from a pluralistic perspective. Grounding his approach in the works of Paul McHugh, Phillip Slavney, Leston Havens, and others, Ghaemi incorporates a more explicitly philosophical discussion of the strengths of a pluralistic model and the weaknesses of other approaches, such as biological or psychoanalytic theories, the biopsychosocial model, or eclecticism.

Ghaemi's methodology is twofold: on the one hand, he applies philosophical ideas, such as utilitarian versus duty-based ethical models, to psychiatric practice. On the other hand, he subjects clinical psychiatric phenomena, such as psychosis or the Kraepelin nosology, to a conceptual analysis that is philosophically informed. This book will be of interest to professionals and students in psychiatry, as well as psychologists, social workers, philosophers, and general readers who are interested in understanding the field of psychiatry and its practices at a conceptual level.

Reviews

Reviews

Ghaemi raises dozens of thought-provoking questions in the midst of his tour through the concepts of psychiatry.

This interesting and well-written volume can both enhance the reader's conceptual approach to understanding psychiatry and assist the reader's avoidance of dogmatism on the one hand and conceptual 'glibness' on the other... A valuable contribution to our literature and an important extension of McHugh and Slavney's 1998 text, The Perspectives of Psychiatry.

After the narrow confines of most psychiatric writing, it is refreshing to read an author who can quote knowingly from both Seymour Kety and William James and who can competently discuss topics as diverse as the mind-body problem and the relevance for psychiatry of Epicurus and Sufism. The book is a reminder of the rich banquet of conceptual and philosophical issues that are of relevance to our field but rarely make it into the standard literature.

A sensational success when it comes to waking us up from our conceptually impoverished stupors... Ghaemi has given us a book that is not only painfully unusual by today's standards, but so stubbornly and clearly thought out as well.

The book is intended for thinking psychiatrists, but thinking patients stand to benefit perhaps even more.

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About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
368
ISBN
9780801886300
Illustration Description
8 b&w illus.
Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface to the Paperback Edition
Preface to the First Edition
Acknowledgments
Part I: Theory: What Clinicians Think and Why
1. The Status Quo: Dogmatism, the Biopsychosocial Model, and

Foreword
Preface to the Paperback Edition
Preface to the First Edition
Acknowledgments
Part I: Theory: What Clinicians Think and Why
1. The Status Quo: Dogmatism, the Biopsychosocial Model, and Alternatives
2. What There Is: Of Mind and Brain
3. How We Know: Understanding the Mind
4. What Is Scientific Method?
5. Reading Karl Jaspers's General Psychopathology
6. What Is Scientific Method in Psychiatry?
7. Darwin's Dangerous Method: The Essentialist Fallacy
8. What We Value: The Ethics of Psychiatry
9. Desire and Self: Hellenistic and Eastern Approaches
Part III: Practice: What Clinicians Do and Why
10. On the Nature of Mental Illness: Disease or Myth?
11. Order out of Chaos? The Evolution of Psychiatric Nosology
12. A Theory of DSM-IV: Ideal Types
13. Dimensions versus Categories
14. The Perils of Belief: Psychosis
15. The Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune: Depression
16. Life's Roller Coaster: Mania
17. Being Self-Aware: Insight
18. Psychopharmacology: Calvinism or Hedonism?
19. Truth and Statistics: Problems of Empirical Psychiatry
20. A Climate of Opinion: What Remains of Psychoanalysis
21. Being There: Existential Psychotherapy
22. Beyond Eclecticism: Integrating Psychotherapy and Psychopharmacology
Part III: After Eclecticism
23. Bridging the Biology-Psychology Dichotomy: The Hopes of Integrationism
24. Why It Is Hard to Be Pluralist
Afterword
Notes
References
Index

Author Bios
S. Nassir Ghaemi, MD, MPH
Featured Contributor

S. Nassir Ghaemi, MD, MPH

S. Nassir Ghaemi, M.D., M.P.H., is a professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and director of the Mood Disorders Program at the Tufts Medical Center in Boston. He also serves on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. He has written several books including Mood Disorders: A Practical Guide; A Clinician's Guide to Statistics and Epidemiology in Mental Health: Measuring Truth...
Featured Contributor

Paul R. McHugh, M.D.

Paul R. McHugh, M.D., is the Henry Phipps Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, the former director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the coauthor of The Perspectives of Psychiatry, also available from Johns Hopkins. He was selected by President George W. Bush to sit on the Presidential Council on Bioethics and by the U.S...
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