Abstract

Contemporary psychiatry has only one generally accepted model, that of biological – materialist explanation and treatment. But clinicians recognize that this model omits much that is important and they therefore confront a dilemma: either limit their practice to an incomplete model, or use other models which seem unfounded and speculative. Philosophical considerations may help clinicians find a way out 1) by showing the inherent limitations of biological – materialist explanations, and 2) by grounding other (psychotherapeutic) approaches on general considerations of how the mind, and in particular language, works. These general considerations include: the dependence of meaning upon environmental context, the attribution of meaning as involving sets of skills, capacities and reactions, the multiplicity of language games and therefore their individual limitations, the dependence of meaning upon our shared interests, the largely unconscious nature of mind and our necessary limitations to public criteria for mental events and processes.