Mind, Meaning and Mental Disorder

The authors of this text aim to show that in psychology and psychiatry, meaningful causes of psychiatric disorder are just as real as physical causes, and it follows that the understanding of the mind will not be achieved solely through improved technologies for examining the brain.

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Philosophical ideas about the mind, brain and behaviour 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 is 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 are becoming available to adults and children with mental health problems. These two strands reflect traditional distinctions between body and mind, and causal as opposed to meaningful explanations of behaviour. In this book, which has been written for psychiatrists, psychologists, philosophers, and others in related fields, the authors propose a radical reconstruction of these traditional distinctions and make a contribution to the field of philosophy of psychological disorder.
Throughout the discussion philosophical theories are brought to bear on the particular questions of the explanation of behaviour, the nature of mental causation, and eventually the origins of major disorders including depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, and personality disorder. The book should also serve as an introduction to current issues in philosophy of mind and theoretical psychology suitable for beginners.