1st Edition
A Structuralist Approach in Psychiatry Uncanny and Desire in Psychosis
Part one. Positioning of modern psychiatry
Chapter 1. Outline of the problem facing psychiatry
Chapter 2. Historical development of Psychiatry from the Enlightenment
Part two. Structuralism and nothingness
Chapter 3. Structuralism
Chapter 4. Fundamental Impossibilities
Chapter 5. Nothingness and Science
Chapter 6. Nothingness as creative moment
Part three. Three Experiences of Nothingness in the Clinic
Chapter 7. As in a black mirror; Cotard’s syndrome
Chapter 8. The Stranger in ourselves; Capgras Syndrome
Chapter 9. Experience of Nothingness
Part four. Towards a Different Perspective of the Subject
Chapter 10. Subject and Science
Chapter 11. Looking for the Psyche in Psychiatry
Chapter 12. Sketch of an Alternative
Part five. The Creative Power of Nothingness
Chapter 13. Friedrich Nietzsche and Degree Zero of Morality
Chapter 14. Interlude, Fable
Chapter 15. Martin Heidegger and Nothingness
Chapter 16. Nothingness at Jacques Lacan
Chapter 17. Slavoj Žižek: Can it be Less than Nothing?
Chapter 18. Genealogy of Creation
Chapter 19. Towards a Structuralist Psychiatry
Chapter 20. The Role of Linguistics in a Therapeutic Perspective
Chapter 21. The Eclipse of the (Psychotic) Subject?
Chapter 22. What about the Self?
Part six. To Resist the Death Instinct of Nothingness
Chapter 23. An Object Relations Theory without an Object
Chapter 24. Psychiatry and the Transcendental
Chapter 25. The Ethical Implications of Mysticism and Desire
Chapter 26. The Subject as a Dynamic Process: From Deadlock to Transformation-Symbolisation as a Response to Nothingness
Chapter 27. Everything or Nothing-About Mysticism and the Genesis of the Subject
Biography
Jos de Kroon is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and psychoanalyst working at the Reinier van Arkel Institution of Mental Health in Den Bosch, the Netherlands. He publishes on the subjects of psychiatry and science, Freud, and Lacan. His publications include: Language and psychosis (1993), The history of psychiatry (1999), About the soul (2007), The voice of the Other (2010, about verbal hallucinations), and Hamlet versus Oedipus or a matrixial orientation? (2020), and Discomfort and Desire - A Lacanian View of the Subject in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (2026).
“In clear prose, Jos de Kroon presents an alternative to current psychiatry, which seems to have had its day. His point of departure is a structuralist approach in which more space and freedom are reserved for the subject.”
Professor Marc De Kesel, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
“A Structuralist Approach in Psychiatry is an atypical psychiatric book that challenges the dominant naturalistic and mechanistic paradigms of contemporary psychiatry. While engaging with crucial questions of diagnosis and treatment, it critiques mainstream psychiatric discourse through the lens of structuralist linguistics, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and continental philosophy. De Kroon argues for a structuralist psychiatry that recognizes the subject as fundamentally shaped by its symbolic and discursive environment, rather than reducing mental illness to neurobiological determinants. Through a nuanced reading of concepts from Saussure, Lacan, Heidegger, and Žižek, he explores how ‘nothingness’ operates as a creative force in subject formation and in psychosis. With case discussions on Cotard’s syndrome, Capgras syndrome, and negative hallucinations, the book demonstrates how symbolic disruptions manifest in clinical practice. Rather than merely confronting psychiatry with philosophy, De Kroon constructs a bridge between psychoanalytic theory and psychiatric treatment, making a compelling plea for a paradigm shift in mental health care.”
Professor Stijn Vanheule, University of Ghent, Belgium
