This is a comprehensive collection of original essays by leading thinkers exploring the newly emerging interdisciplinary field of the philosophy of psychiatry. The authors aim to define this exciting field and highlight the philosophical assumptions and problems underlying psychiatric theory and practice , the category of mental disorders, and the rationale for the
their social, clinical and legal treatment. As a branch of medicine and a healing practice, psychiatry is based on assumptions that are deeply and inevitably philosophical. Concepts of rationality, personhood and autonomy shape our understanding and treatment of mental disorders. Philosophical questions about evidence, reality, truth and value give meaning to each of the social institutions and practices involved in psychiatric care. The psyche, the mind and its relationship to the body, subjectivity and consciousness, personal identity and character, thought, will, memory and emotion are as much the subject of traditional philosophical inquiry as the psychiatric enterprise. A new field of research - the philosophy of psychiatry - began to take shape in the last two decades of the 20th century. Inspired by the growing recognition that philosophical ideas underlie many aspects of clinical practice, psychiatric theorising and research, mental health policy, and the economics and politics of psychiatric care, academic philosophers, practitioners and philosophically trained psychiatrists have begun a series of important interdisciplinary exchanges. This volume samples the research findings of these exchanges. Leading thinkers in the field, including clinicians, philosophers, psychologists and interdisciplinary teams, provide original discussions that are not only expository and critical, but also reflective of their authors. All discussions break new theoretical ground. As befits such an interdisciplinary effort, they are methodologically eclectic and diverse and divergent in their assumptions and conclusions.