The Disordered Mind

Description

"George Graham is contemporary philosophy’s most gifted and humane writer. The Disordered Mind is a wise, deep, and thorough inquiry into the nature of the human mind and the various ‘creaks, cracks, and crevices’ into which it is prone sometimes to wander."

Owen Flanagan, Duke University, USA

"The book is a success, it is consistently insightful and humane, and conveys a clear understanding not only of relevant philosophical topics, but also of a much more difficult issue, the relevance of those topics to understanding mental illness."

Philip Gerrans, University of Adelaide, Australia

"The Disordered Mind is a must read for anyone who is a psychiatrist, psychologist, philosopher, neurologist, or mental health worker. Indeed, it is a must read for any thoughtful person who simply desires to understand more deeply and more realistically the workings of their own mind as well as the workings of the human mind in general."

Richard Garrett, Bentley University, USA

Mental disorder raises profound questions about the nature of the mind. The Disordered Mind: An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind and Mental Illness is the first book to systematically examine and explain, from a philosophical standpoint, what mental disorder is: its reality, causes, consequences, and more. It is also an outstanding introduction to philosophy of mind from the perspective of mental disorder.

Each chapter explores a central question or problem about mental disorder, including:

• What is mental disorder and can it be distinguished from neurological disorder?
• What roles should reference to psychological, cultural, and social factors play in the medical/scientific understanding of mental disorder?
• What makes mental disorders undesirable? Are they diseases?
• Mental disorder and the mind–body problem
• Is mental disorder a breakdown of rationality? What is a rational mind?
• Addiction, responsibility and compulsion
• Ethical dilemmas posed by mental disorder, including questions of dignity and self-respect.

Each topic is clearly explained and placed in both a clinical and philosophical context. Mental disorders discussed include clinical depression, dissociative identity disorder, anxiety, religious delusions, and paranoia. Several non-mental neurological disorders that possess psychological symptoms are also examined, including Alzheimer’s disease, Down’s syndrome, and Tourette’s syndrome. Additional features, such as chapter summaries and annotated further reading, provide helpful tools for those coming to the subject for the first time.

Throughout, George Graham draws expertly on issues that cut across philosophy, science, and psychiatry. As such, The Disordered Mind is a superb introduction to the philosophy of mental disorder for students of philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, and related mental health professions.

George Graham is Professor of Philosophy and Neuroscience at Georgia State University, USA, and a past president of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology. He is co-author and co-editor of the Oxford Textbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry (2006).

PHILOSOPHY/PSYCHOLOGY

Reviews

'What Professor Graham's book does in effect is to provide a systematic overview of all of the issues surrounding the concept and theory of mental illness and thereby the central notions embedded in our mental health practices. Moreover, he performs this task with the utmost insight, wealth of knowledge, careful and detailed argumentation, brilliance and clarity of articulation that is certain to make this book a classic that will open the door for a dynamic and fruitful exchange between the two great fields of mental health and the philosophy of mind.

The Disordered Mind is a must read for anyone who is a psychiatrist, psychologist, philosopher, neurologist, or mental health worker. Indeed, it is a must read for any thoughtful person who simply desires to understand more deeply and more realistically the workings of their own mind as well as the workings of the human mind in general.' – Richard Garrett, Bentley University, USA

'George Graham is contemporary philosophy’s most gifted and humane writer. The Disordered Mind is a wise, deep, and thorough inquiry into the nature of the human mind and the various "creaks, cracks, and crevices" into which it is prone sometimes to wander… The Disordered Mind is a pedagogical, philosophical, and psychiatric tour de force.' – Owen Flanagan, Duke University, USA

'The book is a success, it is consistently insightful and humane, and conveys a clear understanding not only of relevant philosophical topics, but also of a much more difficult issue, the relevance of those topics to understanding mental illness.' – Philip Gerrans, University of Adelaide, Australia

'George Graham has a longstanding reputation as a distinguished philosopher of psychiatry, and The Disordered Mind shows why. Its scope is broad and its presentation is clear and precise. It is a very impressive statement of a widespread and important philosophical perspective on mental illness, which everyone studying the philosophy of psychiatry will want to read . . .It is clear enough, and vividly enough written, to be assigned fruitfully to undergraduates, but it also makes enough contributions to the central debates in the field to be important for specialists.'–Dominic Murphy and Gemma Smart, both University of Sydney, in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2010-06-29

Contents

1. Introduction

1.1. Stability and Instability

1.2. One Brief History

1.3. What Is This Book About?

1.4. Topics and Themes

Chapter Summary and Suggested Readings

2. Conceiving Mental Disorder

2.1. Mental Disorder Has Consequences

2.2. What Should a Theory of Mental Disorder Do?

2.3. Mind of Mental Disorder

2.4 Exemplars of Mental Disorder

2.5. Roles of the Mental in Mental Disorder

Chapter Summary and Suggested Readings

3. Disorder of Mental Disorder

3.1. What Makes Mental Disorder Undesirable?

3.2. Morally Therapeutic Interlude and Lure of the Disease Model

3.3. Are Mental Disorders Diseases?

3.4. A Problematic Disorder and the Place of DSM

Chapter Summary and Suggested Readings

4. On Being Skeptical about Mental Disorder

4.1. Mental Disorder and the Mind-Body Problem

4.2. Mental Disorder and Respect for Persons

Chapter Summary and Suggested Readings

5. Seeking Norms for Mental Disorder

5.1. Despair, Depression, and Disorder

5.2. Anxiety and DSM

5.3. Cultural Conventionalism

5.4. Mind Maladapted

5.5. Rationality and Intentionality

5.6. Logic of Its Own

5.7. A Brief on Incapacity and Disability

Chapter Summary and Suggested Readings

6. An Original Position

6.1. Social Order, Mental Order and Veils of Ignorance

6.2. Importance of Conscious Experience

6.3. Basic Psychological Capacities

6.4. A Concept of Mental Disorder

Chapter Summary and Suggested Readings

7. Addiction and Responsibility for Self

7.1. Impulse, Inhibition and Responsibility for Self

7.2. Compulsion and Addiction

7.3. Animal Models

7.4. Neural Models

7.5. One Way in Which the Brain May Gum Up the Works

Chapter Summary and Suggested Readings

8. Reality Lost and Found

8.1. Symptom and Schizophrenia

8.2. Grand Delusions

8.3. Delusion and Self Comprehension

8.4. Realism among the Ruins?

8.5. Paranoia, Benevolence, and Imagination

Chapter Summary and Suggested Readings

9. Minding the Missing Me

9.1. Me, Myself and My Selves

9.2. ‘I am Dead’ but Do Not Mean It

9.3. Self Serving in a Supermarket

Chapter Summary and Suggested Readings

Epilogue: The Final Affliction: Copenhagen Interpretation

Bibliography

Index

Author Bio

George Graham is Professor of Philosophy and Neuroscience at Georgia State University and a past president of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology. He is co-author and co-editor of the Oxford Textbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry (2006).

Related Subjects

1. Philosophy of Mind
2. Mental Health
3. Philosophy of Mind
4. Philosophy of Psychology