The Mind and its Discontents

Second Edition

Grant Gillett

International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry

Enhances our understanding of the ethical demands of psychiatry and the challenges that psychiatry and the study of disorders of the mind can pose to our stereotypes about human nature and human psychology.
Exciting new exploration of the links between mind, brain, and mental disorder
Provides important new insights into psychiatric conditions such as autism, eating disorders, multiple personality disorder, and other major psychopathologies
Interdisciplinary, bringing together insights from psychiatry, philosophy of mind, psychology, and medical ethics

The Mind and its Discontents

Second Edition

Grant Gillett

International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry

Description

The first edition of The Mind and its Discontents was a powerful analysis of how, as a society, we view mental illness. In the ten years since the first edition, there has been a growing interest in the philosophy of psychiatry, and a new edition of this text is more timely and important than ever.
In The Mind and its Discontents, Grant Gillett argues that an understanding of mental illness requires more than just a study of biological models of mental processes and pathologies. As intensely social animals, he argues, we need to look for the causes of human mental disorders in our interactions with others; in social rule-following and its role in the organization of mental content; in the power relations embedded within social structures and cultural norms; in the way that our mental life is inscribed by a cumulative life of encounters with others. Drawing upon work from within the philosophy of mind, epistemology, post-modern continental philosophy, and philosophy of language, he tries to elucidate the nature of psychiatric phenomena involving disorders of thought, perception, emotion, moral sense, and action. Within this framework, a series of chapters analyze important psychiatric disorders, such as depression, attention deficiency, autism, schizophrenia, and anorexia. Along the way, Gillett explores the nature of memory and identity; of hysteria and what constitutes rational behavior, and of what causes us to lavel someone a psychopath or deviant.

Updated, available in paperback, and more accessible than ever before, the new edition of this fascinating book provides readers with important insights into the causes and nature of psychosis. In addition, Gillett's arguments have considerable implications for the way in which we understand and treat people suffering from psychiatric disorders. The Mind and its Discontents will be read by researchers and postgraduate students in a range of academic areas, including psychiatry, bioethics, philosophy of mind, social theory, and clinical psychology. It will also be of considerable interest to practicing psychiatrists.

The Mind and its Discontents

Second Edition

Grant Gillett

International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry

1. Mind, brain and psychiatry
2. Psychiatric categorization
3. The treatment of aliens
4. The depths of the self
5. Thought in disarray
6. The black dog and the muse
7. Fidgets
8. I and other robots
9. Moral insanity and evil
10. 'My name is Legion for we are many'
11. I eat therefore I am not
12. The meaning of hysteria
13. The good that I would do
14. Interrogating psychiatry and philosophy
Appendices