PHILOSOPHY and PSYCHIATRY are unusual bedfellows.Medical students,already hard pressed for time,are generally thrust into the melee of mental disorders,having spent years focussing on first dissecting and then proddin...PHILOSOPHY and PSYCHIATRY are unusual bedfellows.Medical students,already hard pressed for time,are generally thrust into the melee of mental disorders,having spent years focussing on first dissecting and then prodding human bodies,which too often leaves little room for evaluating theories about human nature,especially with respect to“Intent”or Free Will.The present writer was unusual in that having spent two years in pre-clinical medical training,he devoted a full university year to pursuing philosophical studies in up to 20 different university departments.Thus he entered his teaching hospital with a working knowledge of Hume,Kant,Sartre,Wittgenstein,Buber and others.This is not a clinical paper-it focuses on the reasoning behind psychiatric precepts-so it is perhaps inevitable that today’s prevailing ideology is shown to be grievously wanting-a case of decidedly unphilosophical,even anti-philosophical,medical practice.The notion of there ever being a“scientific”theory of psychiatry has already been discounted in a series of earlier papers-which leaves us with the responsibility for choosing the best possible option,from an infinite number of theoretical models available.The paper provides a whistle-stop tour of how mental disease looks if you start with a confident and consistent look at that pinnacle of human attributes-consciousness.It doesn’t presume to say what consciousness is,but it does assume that it has a function,like every other human asset.Indeed by cutting corners,evaluating what has worked over 60 years in psychiatry,the result is as straightforward a picture of sanity as one can reasonably expect.As such,it leaves the reader with little wriggle room-there is enough clarity here,for you to accept or reject the main proposition.However,since the flaws described tend to be lethal,acceptance entails action.Now read on.展开更多
PSYCHIATRISTS DISAGREE profoundly with lawyers,about what we human beings are capable of.The one says we have‘intent’—the other that we do not.They cannot both be right.All non-psychiatrist doctors must perforce ag...PSYCHIATRISTS DISAGREE profoundly with lawyers,about what we human beings are capable of.The one says we have‘intent’—the other that we do not.They cannot both be right.All non-psychiatrist doctors must perforce agree with the lawyers.This paper argues that these harmful discrepancies will continue,until we undo the separate watertight human knowledge silos,which have grown up between legal procedures,general medicine,and psychiatric practice.All three would benefit.Psychiatry in particular,suffers from a grievously narrow view of scientific evidence,one which is open to fundamental criticism.There are radical differences in how the fuzzy concept of‘intent’is regarded in law,in general clinical medicine and in psychiatry.Once‘intent’is accorded its due weight,our understanding of justice,health and sanity is vastly improved,allowing us hugely more optimism.This paper is based on two earlier papers—The Scientific Evidence That‘Intent’Is Vital for Healthcare and Why Quakerism Is More Scientific Than Einstein.These are deployed here,to unpick the unhealthy tangle in which today’s psychiatry now finds itself.Its six sections are—(1)why‘intent’matters in law,in medicine&in psychiatry;(2)scientific quagmires;(3)a working definition for‘madness’;(4)“children are impressionable”;(5)“trust me,I’m a doctor”;and(6)skin heals,why can’t minds?The breakthrough is that verbal fuzziness means that words can mean different things at different times––not that they are 100%meaningless.Only a better understanding of trust,autonomy and consent can open the way to something that is painfully absent from today’s psychiatry––a cure for any and all mental disease.展开更多
文摘PHILOSOPHY and PSYCHIATRY are unusual bedfellows.Medical students,already hard pressed for time,are generally thrust into the melee of mental disorders,having spent years focussing on first dissecting and then prodding human bodies,which too often leaves little room for evaluating theories about human nature,especially with respect to“Intent”or Free Will.The present writer was unusual in that having spent two years in pre-clinical medical training,he devoted a full university year to pursuing philosophical studies in up to 20 different university departments.Thus he entered his teaching hospital with a working knowledge of Hume,Kant,Sartre,Wittgenstein,Buber and others.This is not a clinical paper-it focuses on the reasoning behind psychiatric precepts-so it is perhaps inevitable that today’s prevailing ideology is shown to be grievously wanting-a case of decidedly unphilosophical,even anti-philosophical,medical practice.The notion of there ever being a“scientific”theory of psychiatry has already been discounted in a series of earlier papers-which leaves us with the responsibility for choosing the best possible option,from an infinite number of theoretical models available.The paper provides a whistle-stop tour of how mental disease looks if you start with a confident and consistent look at that pinnacle of human attributes-consciousness.It doesn’t presume to say what consciousness is,but it does assume that it has a function,like every other human asset.Indeed by cutting corners,evaluating what has worked over 60 years in psychiatry,the result is as straightforward a picture of sanity as one can reasonably expect.As such,it leaves the reader with little wriggle room-there is enough clarity here,for you to accept or reject the main proposition.However,since the flaws described tend to be lethal,acceptance entails action.Now read on.
文摘PSYCHIATRISTS DISAGREE profoundly with lawyers,about what we human beings are capable of.The one says we have‘intent’—the other that we do not.They cannot both be right.All non-psychiatrist doctors must perforce agree with the lawyers.This paper argues that these harmful discrepancies will continue,until we undo the separate watertight human knowledge silos,which have grown up between legal procedures,general medicine,and psychiatric practice.All three would benefit.Psychiatry in particular,suffers from a grievously narrow view of scientific evidence,one which is open to fundamental criticism.There are radical differences in how the fuzzy concept of‘intent’is regarded in law,in general clinical medicine and in psychiatry.Once‘intent’is accorded its due weight,our understanding of justice,health and sanity is vastly improved,allowing us hugely more optimism.This paper is based on two earlier papers—The Scientific Evidence That‘Intent’Is Vital for Healthcare and Why Quakerism Is More Scientific Than Einstein.These are deployed here,to unpick the unhealthy tangle in which today’s psychiatry now finds itself.Its six sections are—(1)why‘intent’matters in law,in medicine&in psychiatry;(2)scientific quagmires;(3)a working definition for‘madness’;(4)“children are impressionable”;(5)“trust me,I’m a doctor”;and(6)skin heals,why can’t minds?The breakthrough is that verbal fuzziness means that words can mean different things at different times––not that they are 100%meaningless.Only a better understanding of trust,autonomy and consent can open the way to something that is painfully absent from today’s psychiatry––a cure for any and all mental disease.
