Psychological traumatisation, as we understand it today, was—in terms of the history of ideas—anticipated by various approaches which have had a lasting impact on modern psychiatry, psychotherapy, and psychosomatic medicine. On the one hand, there is the traditional concept of possession and exorcism with its impressive psychodynamics. On the other hand, there is the theory of the imagination, of an illusion in the sense of a pathogenic infection. Especially the pathological teachings of Paracelsus (sixteenth century) and Johann Baptist (...) van Helmont (seventeenth century)—the latter having advanced the former’s alchemist approach—demonstrate the extent to which demonological, parasitological, and psychological ideas were amalgamated in their ontological notion of a disease. Only the introduction of hypnotism in the middle of the nineteenth century made possible a psychological or psychodynamic understanding of psychological trauma in the modern sense. Hypnotism was striving to strictly dissociate from the magical and natural philosophical speculations of mesmerism and its theory was quite compatible with the model representations of scientific medicine. Sigmund Freud was able to tie in his ideas of hysteria and neurosis with this concept and especially to define repression of (infantile) sexuality as the cause of a culturally ineluctable psychological trauma. Finally, a brief survey of medical history is given to explore artificial trauma as a healing factor. (shrink)

Axel Honneth has been instrumental in advancing the work of the Frankfurt School of critical theorists, rebuilding their effort to combine radical social and political analysis with rigorous philosophical inquiry. These eleven essays published over the past five years reclaim the relevant themes of the Frankfurt School, which counted Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Jürgen Habermas, Franz Neumann, and Albrecht Wellmer as members. They also engage with Kant, Freud, Alexander Mitscherlich, and Michael Walzer, whose work on morality, (...) class='Hi'>history, democracy, and individuality intersects with the Frankfurt School's core concerns. Collected here for the first time in English, Honneth's essays pursue the unifying themes and theses that support the methodologies and thematics of critical social theory, and they address the possibilities of continuing this tradition through radically changed theoretical and social conditions. According to Honneth, there is a unity that underlies critical theory's multiple approaches: the way in which reason is both distorted and furthered in contemporary capitalist society. And while much is dead in the social and psychological doctrines of critical social theory, its central inquiries remain vitally relevant. Is social progress still possible after the horrors of the twentieth century? Does capitalism deform reason and, if so, in what respects? Can we justify the relationship between law and violence in secular terms, or is it inextricably bound to divine justice? How can we be free when we're subject to socialization in a highly complex and in many respects unfree society? For Honneth, suffering and moral struggle are departure points for a new "reconstructive" form of social criticism, one that is based solidly in the empirically grounded, interdisciplinary approach of the Frankfurt School. (shrink)

Since psychiatry remains a descriptive discipline, it is essential for its practitioners to understand how the language of psychiatry came to be formed. This important book, written by a psychiatrist-historian, traces the genesis of the descriptive categories of psychopathology and examines their interaction with the psychological and philosophical context within which they arose. The author explores particularly the language and ideas that have characterised descriptive psychopathology from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. He presents a masterful survey of the (...) history of the main psychiatric symptoms, from the metaphysics of classical antiquity to the operational criteria of today. Tracing the evolution of concepts such as memory, consciousness, will and personality, and of symptoms ranging from catalepsy and aboulia to anxiety and self-harm, this book provides fascinating insights into the subjective nature of mental illness, and into the ideas of British, Continental and American authorities who sought to clarify and define it. (shrink)

The quantitative experimental scientific psychology that became prominent by the turn of the twentieth century grew from three main areas of intellectual inquiry. First and most directly, it arose out of the traditional psychology of the philosophy curriculum, as expressed in theories of mind and cognition. Second, it adopted the attitudes of the new natural philosophy of the scientific revolution, attitudes of empirically driven causal analysis and exact observation and experimentation. Third, it drew upon investigations of the senses. Natural philosophical (...) disciplines such as optics and acoustics treated the functioning of the senses. Optics, in particular, had from antiquity comprised a complete theory of vision, combining the physics, physiology, psychology, metaphysics, and epistemology of vision, using mathematical techniques where feasible. Within medicine, sensory physiology examined anatomy, physiology, and pathology. Philosophical psychology had long examined the senses as mental capacities connected with cognition and knowledge, and such discussions also heeded the new attitudes of natural philosophy. This chapter first examines the early relations of psychology to biology and characterizes various eighteenth-century loci of psychological thought. It then pursues nineteenth-century developments in Germany and Britain that culminate in the “new” psychology of the 1860s and 1870s. (shrink)

One of the more striking aspects of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception (1945) is his use of psychological case studies in pathology. For Merleau-Ponty, a philosophical interpretation of phenomena like aphasia and psychic blindness promises to shed light not just on the nature of pathology, but on the nature of human existence more generally. In this paper, I show that although Merleau-Ponty is surely a pioneer in this use of pathology, his work is deeply indebted to an earlier philosophical study (...) of pathology offered by the German Neo-Kantian Ernst Cassirer in the third volume of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (1929). More specifically, I argue that Merleau-Ponty, in fact, follows Cassirer in placing Kant's notion of the productive imagination at the centre of his account of pathology and the features of existence it illuminates. Recognizing the debt Merleau-Ponty's account of pathology has to the Kantian tradition not only acts as a corrective to more recent interpretation of Merleau-Ponty's views of pathology (Dreyfus, Romdenh-Romluc), but also recommends we resist the prevailing tendency to treat Merleau-Ponty's philosophy as anti-Kantian. Instead, my interpretation seeks to restore Merleau-Ponty's place within the Kantian tradition. (shrink)

Introducción: Los cambios biológicos, sicológicos, económicos y sociales que se observan durante el envejecimiento conllevan a pensar que en los ancianos existe una serie de factores que favorecen la aparición de una depresión. Objetivo: evaluar la efectividad de una intervención sicológica para disminuir la depresión en adultos mayores de la Casa de abuelos "Dr. Diego Tamayo Figueredo", de Puerto Padre, en el período de noviembre de 2013 - mayo de 2014. Material y métodos: se realizó un estudio de intervención sicológica (...) en una muestra de 12 adultos mayores de la casa de abuelos. Se aplicó un programa de intervención sicológica, así como la Escala de Depresión Geriátrica para realizar la valoración antes y después de la intervención. Se empleó el modelo Cognitivo- Conductual de Beck. Los datos fueron tratados según la estadística descriptiva. Resultados: el porciento más elevado de pacientes correspondió al grupo de ancianos con edades entre los 60 y 90 años de edad. Respecto al sexo, el más frecuente es el masculino. El asma bronquial, la hipertensión arterial y la diabetes Mellitus representaron el mayor porciento de antecedentes patológicos personales. Conclusión: la intervención sicológica resultó efectiva pues se logró disminuir a leve los niveles iniciales de depresión establecida y los considerados con leve a no depresión, por lo tanto se afirma que con su aplicación fue modificado el estado emocional de los adultos mayores que se implicaron en la muestra. Introduction: Biological, psychological, financial and social changes observed during aging lead to think that there is a series of factors that favor the appearance of depression in senior citizens. Objective: Assessing the effectiveness of a psychological intervention in order to reduce depression in senior citizens from "Dr. Diego Tamayo Figueredo" Senior Citizens' House, Puerto Padre, from November 2013 to May 2014. Material and methods: A psychological intervention study was conducted on a sample of 12 senior citizens from the house. A psychological intervention program as well as the Geriatrics Depression Scale were applied before and after the intervention in order to make the assessment. The Beck's cognitive-behavior model was used. Data was processed according to descriptive statistics. Results: The highest percentage of patients corresponded to a group of seniors between 60 and 90 years of age. Regarding sex, males are more common. Bronchial asthma, arterial hypertension and diabetes mellitus represented the highest percentage of personal pathological history. Conclusion: The psychological intervention proved to be effective since initial established depression levels were reduced to minor and those considered as minor were reduced to no depression ; therefore, it is stated that its application modified the state of mind of the senior citizens involved in the sample. (shrink)

Psychologists have traditionally been reluctant to investigate not just the historical nature of their subject matter — humans as acting, thinking and feeling beings — but even more so the historical nature of their discipline, its theories and practices. In this article, I will try to take seriously the historical transformation in the West from industrial society to consumer society. After having introduced these socio-economic designations, I shall try to illustrate how the transformation relates to changes in significant societal practices (...) with a particular attention to education and work. Since its inception, psychology has been deeply involved in the management of human beings in and through these practices, and considerable changes have taken place in the dominant psychologies with the change from industrial to consumer society. I interpret psychoanalysis and behaviourism as psychologies of industrial society, and humanistic psychology and the more recent wave of social constructionism as psychologies of consumer society. With shifting psychologies also come shifting life problems and pathologies, which I briefly address. (shrink)

Over the past decade the welfare state has come under sustained attack not only from quarters which never approved of its policies, but also from political theorists who used to support it. With the collapse of communism, the policy of comprehensive welfare provision came under renewed scrutiny. It was argued that its impact on work incentives is most detrimental. Examining in detail current unemployment debates within Western welfare states, this book seeks to verify or refute the view that non-work is (...) increasingly chosen by work shy individuals - the 'pathological' theory of unemployment. Drawing from a range of disciplinary perspectives - from social philosophy and the history of philosophy, to occupational psychology and feminist economics - this interdisciplinary analysis reveals that the "pathological" theory of unemployment, with its reliance on a deficient depiction of human nature and its disregard of non-pecuniary work incentives and empirical evidence on benefit fraud, cannot be upheld. (shrink)

Introduction. Eating Disorders (EDs) are serious psychiatric disorders, impacting physical and psychosocial functioning, often with a chronic course and high mortality rates. The two continua model of mental health states that mental health is a complete state, that is not merely the absence of mental illness, but also the presence of mental health. This model was studied among ED patients by comparing the levels of well-being to the Dutch general population and by examining the of well-being and psychopathology. Method. A (...) total of 468 female ED patients participated in this study during application and intake at a specialized ED treatment centre in the Netherlands. They filled out questionnaires about well-being (MHC-SF), general psychopathology (OQ-45), and ED psychopathology (EDE-Q). Categorical and mean well-being levels were calculated. Also, the correlates of these variables were examined with Pearson correlation and multiple hierarchical regression analysis. Results. ED patients showed lower levels of emotional, psychological and social well-being on average compared to the general population. About 26% of the ED patients experienced low levels of well-being (languishing). However, also 13% experienced high levels of well-being (flourishing), varying between 9% in Anorexia Nervosa to 25% in Binge Eating Disorder. ED psychopathology and general well-being showed a moderate negative correlation. For patients with Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder however no such correlation was found. Lower general psychopathology, not having a history of hospitalization for the ED, and adaptive personal functioning were correlated with well-being among ED patients. Conclusion This study shows initial support for the two continua model of mental health among ED patients. Psychopathology and well-being should be considered as related, but distinct dimensions of mental health in ED patients. Further research should focus on the possible reciprocal relationships between psychopathology and well-being during recovery. It is recommended to monitor well-being during treatment and to implement interventions for well-being to realize complete recovery for those patients with inadequate levels of well-being. (shrink)

Questions about the naturalness or unnaturalness of homosexuality are as old as the hills, and the answers have often been used to condemn homosexuals, their behaviors, and their relationships. In the past two centuries, a number of sciences have involved themselves in this debate, introducing new vocabularies, theories, arguments, and data, many of which have gradually helped tip the balance toward tolerance and even acceptance. In this book, philosophers Pieter R. Adriaens and Andreas De Block explore the history and (...) philosophy of the gay sciences, revealing how individual and societal values have colored how we think about homosexuality. The authors unpack the entanglement of facts and values in studies of male homosexuality across the natural and human sciences and consider the extent to which science has mitigated or reinforced homonegative mores. The focus of the book is on homosexuality's assumed naturalness. Geneticists rephrased naturalness as innateness, claiming that homosexuality is innate-colloquially, that homosexuals are born gay. Zoologists thought it a natural affair, documenting its existence in myriad animal species, from maybugs to men. Evolutionists presented homosexuality as the product of natural selection and speculated about its adaptive value. Finally, psychiatrists, who had initially pathologized homosexuality, eventually appealed to its naturalness or innateness to normalize it. Discussing findings from an array of sciences--comparative zoology, psychiatry, anthropology, evolutionary biology, social psychology, developmental biology, and machine learning--this book is essential reading for anyone interested in what science has to say about homosexuality. (shrink)

Volume 17 of Progress in Self Psychology, _The Narcissistic Patient Revisited_, begins with the next installment of Strozier's "From the Kohut Archives": first publication of a fragment by Kohut on social class and self-formation and of four letters from his final decade. Taken together, Hazel Ipp's richly textured "Case of Gayle" and the commentaries that it elicits amount to a searching reexamination of narcissistic pathology and the therapeutic process. This illuminating reprise on the clinical phenomenology Kohut associated with "narcissistic personality (...) disorder" accounts for the volume title. The ability of modern self psychology to integrate central concepts from other theories gains expression in Teicholz's proposal for a two-tiered theory of intersubjectivity, in Brownlow's examination of the fear of intimacy, and in Garfield's model for the treatment of psychosis. The social relevance of self psychology comes to the fore in an examination of the experience of adopted children and an inquiry into the roots of mystical experience, both of which concern the ubiquity of the human longing for an idealized parent imago. Among contributions that bring self-psychological ideas to bear on the arts, Frank Lachmann's provocative "Words and Music," which links the history of music to the history of psychoanalytic thought in the quest for universal substrata of psychological experience, deserves special mention. Annette Lachmann's consideration of empathic failure among the characters in Shakespeare's _Othello_ and Silverstein's reflections on Schubert's self-states and selfobject needs in relation to the specific poems set to music in his Lieder round out a collection as richly broad based as the field of self psychology itself. (shrink)

How to mobilize a traumatic national history on behalf of a less fractured polity? How to gain closure over a past that bifurcates the nation and establishes (at least) two national histories — history as told by the victims and by the perpetrators, now to be replaced by a history, as Mark Sanders (2003: 79) describes it, not of `bare facts but, at a crucial level, a history judged, and thus shaped, according to norms of universal (...) human rights'. How to engineer through politics the creation of new national selves, no longer pathologically attached to old and circumscribed forms of identification? These are now the critical questions confronting many elites: the overcoming of traumatic memory through various publicly mandated `technologies of the self'. To heal the nation requires the curing of the self. The politics of social repair understands itself largely through a psychologically inflected vocabulary of regret, apology, and forgiveness — the language of reconciliation. `Social cure', or reconciliation is understood as a process of social healing. In the face of traumatic ruptures in the body politic, in short, governments have sought to repair past wrongs and to heal an emotionally infirmed community. Such politics imply that societies have the capacity to repair themselves, to overcome traumatic pasts, just as an individual possesses the potential to overcome his or her own psychic trauma and fragmentation. But what evidence is there to support the claim that trauma — even for the individual — can be overcome, that history can be overridden, that forgiveness is possible? Psychoanalysis offers the most fully developed systematic body of work embracing a concept of the healing of the self. The article's aim, based upon an empirically derived (case-based) psychoanalysis, is to move toward a more robust theory of self-transformation and political reconciliation in post-traumatic communities. Thus, the article considers contemporary psychoanalytic evidence and asks of it the following questions: How is traumatic experience in the past recovered, and disabled, in the present? Is it necessary through memory to `return to the scene of the crime', in order to move beyond it? What features in the present-day therapeutic setting and in the therapeutic relationship promote healing? The objective is a grounded theory of reconciliation that includes discussion for whole societies of the role of historical recovery in social repair, the relation of the present to the past in self-constitution, and the requisite structure of the present-day reparative community to promote self-transformations. (shrink)

Bedwetting has confounded the presumed boundaries of the human body, existing in a fluid space, between the normal and pathological. Its treatment has demanded the application of a wide array of different technologies, each based on a distinct conception of the relationship between the body and personality, human organs and personal conduct. In tracing the social history of bedwetting and its regulation, this article examines the ontological assumptions underpinning the treatment of bedwetting and how they have changed over (...) the past two centuries. Through the analysis of medical journals, newspaper articles and magazine advertisements, different topologies are identified which redefine the boundaries of the human body and its capacities. From 16th-century naturalism, in which the human body is subordinated to a cosmic totality, to the circumscribed space of 19th-century paediatrics and the expansive circuits of behavioural psychology and modern psychoanalysis, the body has become multiplied, differently enacted through the application of diverse technologies. It will be shown how coordinating the messy and divergent conceptions of the human body has posed an endemic problem for the human sciences, and how the enduring tension between object enactment and subject constitution is an expression of modern ‘baroque’ subjectivity. (shrink)

Psychological trauma is a favoured trope of modernity. It has become commonplace to assume that all ‘bad events’ – and particularly those which involve violence – have a pathological effect on the sufferer’s psyche, as well as that of the perpetrators. This essay explores the ways victims of rape and sexual assault were understood in psychiatric, psychological, forensic, and legal texts in Britain and America from the 19th to the late 20th century. It argues that, unlike most other ‘bad (...) events’, which were incorporated within trauma narratives from the 1860s, the ascription of psychological trauma was only applied to rape victims a century later. Why and what were the consequences? (shrink)

The case of Félida X and her ‘doubled personality’ served in the last quarter of the 19th century as a proving ground for a distinctively French form of psychology that bore the stamp of physiology, including the comparative term normal state. Debates around Félida’s case provided the occasion for reflection about how that term and its opposites could take their places in the emerging discursive field of psychopathology. This article centres its analysis on Eugène Azam’s 1876–77 study of Félida, and (...) the ways his framing of the case was adopted or critiqued by subsequent researchers. Azam initially deployed the label normal state in a routine manner, in contrast to his use of condition seconde to designate Félida’s other state; this pairing served, I argue, to anchor the scientific legitimacy of Félida’s extraordinary psychological manifestations. Unpacking the conceptual associations of Azam’s use of normal state, we find it marked as qualitatively distinct, temporally fixed, and most of all individualized; this without becoming normative. It was only through responses to and criticism of Azam’s study that there emerged a more generalized sense of normality against which pathological (hysteric) subjects’ comportment could be contrasted. Félida’s case itself constitutes a highly individualized reconfiguration of the concept of a normal state, while the subsequent framing of doubled mental states provides a valuable vantage point from which to consider the articulations between the language of emerging French psychology and its evolving subjects of enquiry. (shrink)

In the 1950s, long before his ascent to international renown, Michel Foucault published a scant few works. His early writings on psychology, psychopathology, and anthropology have been dismissed as immature. However, recently discovered manuscripts from the mid-1950s, when Foucault was a lecturer at the University of Lille, testify to the significance of the work that the philosopher produced in the years leading up to the “archaeological” project he launched with History of Madness. Elisabetta Basso offers a groundbreaking and in-depth (...) analysis of Foucault’s Lille manuscripts that sheds new light on the origins of his philosophical project. She considers the epistemological style and methodology of these writings as well as their philosophical context and the scholarly networks in which Foucault was active, foregrounding his relationship to existential psychiatry. Young Foucault blurs the boundaries between biography and theory, exploring the transformations—and, at times, contradictions—that characterize the intellectual trajectory of a philosopher who, as Foucault himself put it, “turned to psychology, and from psychology to history.” Retracing the first steps of the philosopher’s intellectual journey, Basso shows how Foucault’s early writings provide key insights into his archaeological work of the 1960s. Assembling a vast array of archival sources—including manuscripts, reading notes, notes for lectures and conferences, and correspondence—this book develops a new and deeper understanding of Foucault’s body of work. (shrink)

Sante De Sanctis (1862—1935), a pioneer of psychology in Rome at the end of the 19th century, applied methods from the expanding field of experimental psychology to the study of dreams, which was considered one of the leading ways to gain an understanding of normal and pathological psychic life. Taking inspiration from several traditions, De Sanctis proposed a study that anticipated a scientific program that also differentiated between contemporary psychoanalytical interpretations according to which previous dream psychology was considered a (...) 'dark forest'. On the contrary, the multi-faceted methodology that he adopted for the study of an, until then, marginal phenomenon of the 'new' psychology, represented an element of originality that also included the elaboration of a psycho-physiological theory of dreams. Although the Italian psychologist's work on dreams was characterized by these important methodological changes, it disappeared from the references of those who contributed to the foundation of modern dreaming psychology after the Second World War. The present article places De Sanctis' psychology of dreams in its scientific context and singles out its originality while also analyzing the reasons for its marginalization. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Collecting: An Unruly Passion: Psychological PerspectivesKevin MelchionneCollecting: An Unruly Passion: Psychological Perspectives, by Werner Muensterberger; 295 pp. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1994, $29.95 cloth, $13.00 paper.Due to the growth of museum studies, collecting practices are receiving more attention these days. Muensterberger’s book is one of the more ambitious of recent studies in this area. He applies classical psychoanalytic concepts to collecting. Cultural theorists often say that (...) collecting is dominated by neurotic, fetishistic, compulsive, or obsessional desires. Muensterberger is firmly in this camp, and his performance confirms rather than dispels the misgivings that nonpsychoanalytic students of culture have often expressed about the psychoanalytic approach.The first two parts of the book are an exposition of the psychoanalytic view. The third treats several “case studies” of lunatic barons and desperate social climbers whose unbridled accumulation drove their families to ruin. The tales make for good reading. The final part of the book aims at a cultural history of [End Page 524] collecting. This section strays farthest from Muensterberger’s theoretical turf and suffers from a certain confusion of purpose. Much of it reads like a selection of case studies taken from the past rather than a history of collecting. In all, Muensterberger’s cultural history of collecting does not compare favorably with the extensive work in art history on the origins of the museum. I will limit my discussion to his psychoanalytic account of collecting.Muensterberger’s psychoanalysis is starkly classical: collecting is essentially a compensation for prior disappointment and an illusory comfort in the face of an uncertain future. Collecting serves this role particularly well, it seems, because its repetitive structure allows the individual to repeat the tension-reducing act of acquisition when the satisfaction induced by the previous act fades. The meaning of the process of collecting resides in the “momentary undoing of frustrating neediness but is felt as an experience of omnipotence. Like hunger, which must be sated, the obtainment of one more object does not bring an end to the longing. Instead, it is the recurrence of the experience that explains the collector’s mental attitude. The compelling concern to go in search, to discover, to add to one’s store, or holding, or harem, is not generated by conscious planning. Rather, every new addition, whether found, given, bought, discovered, or even stolen, bears the stamp of promise and magical compensation” (p. 13). In a similar vein, Muensterberger locates the origins of the urge to collect in the child’s reliance upon objects as “symbolic substitutes” for the parent. The acquisitive bent of the collector is derivative of the “grasping and clinging” of the infant (p. 18–19).If this sounds like your generic caricature of psychoanalysis, then you have the picture. Muensterberger makes an effort to distinguish his own perspective from a facile reductionism, whereby collecting is no more than the sign of a pathological state of mind. But this is exactly what he is doing. According to the author, collectibles are simply “narcissistic supplies” (p. 234). Speaking of the noted Italian collector, Mario Praz, Muensterberger writes: “the inanimate objects’ function is essentially compensatory... they are being used not only as an attempt to disguise old wounds but at the same time to serve as reminders of past injuries and humiliations” (p. 43).The idea that cultural practices like collecting serve in some way to compensate for the frailty of the human spirit is deeply attractive. If only through repetition, Muensterberger’s insistence upon the essentially compensatory nature of collecting (and for that matter, all culture) begins to make one wonder if the compensatory view of culture has not, through an excess of intellectual scruple, received too little recognition. Unfortunately, he pursues standard Freudian explanations with a relentlessness that sinks to self-caricature. In this respect, the book is a missed opportunity. It is plausible to suggest that collecting temporarily eases all sorts of psychological and existential tensions in adults though I doubt that it does this better than eating, sex, or yoga. [End Page 525]But it is not just his brand of psychoanalysis that is simplistic. Muensterberger defines collecting as the “selecting, gathering, and keeping of... (shrink)

Emotional reactions are rather flexible, due to the schema-like organization of complex socio-emotional situations. Some data on emotion development, and on certain pathological conditions such as alexithymia, give further support for the psychological constructivist view put forward by Lindquist et al. Narrative organization is a key component of this schematic organization. The self-related nature of narrative organization provides scaffolding to the contextual dependency of emotions.

This response deals with seven of the major challenges the commentators have raised to the target article. First, I show that the historical-anecdotal method I have followed has its roots in sociology, and that there is a strong case for the development of a “psychology of history.” Next, the observational data suggesting that intentional cruelty cannot be restricted to humans is rebutted on the grounds that cruelty requires not only an intention to inflict pain, but to do so because (...) that pain would cause the victim to suffer – which requires a theory of mind. Third, in the light of the commentaries, I recognise that not only predation but also intraspecific aggression contributes to the development of cruelty. Fourth, I contrast nativists and environmentalists, the former regarding cruelty as a universal human capacity and the latter holding the view that cruelty is acquired through social learning, and argue that there is an otherworldly quality to the environmentalist view. I then show (the fifth challenge) that the target article does generate testable hypotheses. Sixth is a consideration of the implications of the target article for the re-admission of the concept of evil to the psychological lexicon; and seventh, a consideration of the commentaries which note that the cultivation of compassion is a tool for the prevention of cruelty. The last section of the response replies to questions of detail and rebuts some misrepresentations of my argument. Correspondence:c1 Correspondence to: West Hill House, 6 Swains Lane, Highgate, London N6 6QS, United Kingdom. (shrink)

La maladie de l'ame... la belle expression platonicienne n'a de cesse d'etre d'actualite. Non seulement elle est prompte a revenir d'epoque en epoque, mais elle semble particulierement friande de la notre. Que cette maladie designe une vague tristesse, un taedium vitae, ou, plus grave, une depression, elle implique tout a la fois la souffrance morale et la souffrance physique. L'ame et le corps sont divises mais se retrouvent dans la douleur si bien que la maladie de l'ame vient de ce (...) que nous avons un corps. De ce constat paradoxal Jackie Pigeaud tire une histoire, celle du triomphe du dualisme, du fardeau de l'ame et du corps contraints a etre separes et ensemble a perpetuite. Cette histoire trouve son origine dans le monde grec, et plus exactement dans sa philosophie. La division entre maladies de l'ame et autres maladies, c'est-a-dire maladies du corps, appartient a la philosophie. La medecine aurait ete bien soulagee de cette partition. Est-ce a dire qu'elle n'entendait pas etre philosophique? Sans doute: Hippocrate en offre un bon exemple. L'accord, tacite, est le suivant: l'ame appartient au philosophe et le corps au medecin. Ciceron s'occupe des passions et Galien suspend son jugement des qu'il approche la psyche. Chacun y trouve son compte mais les consequences sont importantes: la partition du champ des maladies, la place du malade dans la societe, les traitements a apporter, notamment a la folie, dependent de ce dualisme initial. Si le legs de la medecine greco-romaine est riche, il est aussi fort lourd et trouve des developpements tout au long de l'histoire de la medecine, jusqu'a la constitution au XVIIIe siecle de la psychiatrie. D'une ecriture et d'une pensee personnelles et profondes, ce livre est un essai sur l'histoire de la pensee medicale, depuis l'Antiquite jusqu'a nos jours. La Maladie de l'ame a ete un succes des sa parution, et ce succes n'a pas ete dementi depuis. L'ouvrage n'etait malheureusement plus disponible: les livres ont leur destin commentait l'auteur. Avec cette edition revue et augmentee, accompagnee d'une preface nouvelle, le livre connait enfin le sort qu'il merite.Jackie Pigeaud est professeur emerite de litterature latine a l'Universite de Nantes et membre de l'Institut universitaire de France. On lui doit egalement, aux Belles Lettres, Folie et cures de la folie chez les medecins de l'Antiquite greco-romaine. La manie. (shrink)

History and Systems of Psychology provides an engaging introduction to the rich story of psychology's past. Retaining the clarity and accessibility praised by readers of earlier editions, this classic textbook provides a chronological history of psychology from the pre-Socratic Greeks to contemporary systems, research, and applications. The new edition also features expanded coverage of Eastern as well as Western traditions, influential women in psychology, professional psychology in clinical, educational, and social settings, and new directions in twenty-first century psychology (...) as a cognitive and a positive science. Assuming little prerequisite knowledge, the authors discuss the people, places, and concepts that have shaped psychology's story, and show that we remain fascinated by the same enduring questions that confronted our ancestors - namely, our wonder at our subjectivity and consciousness of self. The seventh edition is fully supported by robust pedagogical features, instructor resources, and a companion website to aid student learning. (shrink)

The History of Psychology course occupies an unusual but critical place in the psychology curriculum at most universities. As the field has become ever more specialized, with the various subdisciplines branching off, The History of Psychology is often the one course where the common roots of all of these areas are explored. Asking not only "What is psychology?" but also "What is science?" "Why is psychology a science?" and "How did it become one?" this book examines how the (...) paradigm of Psychology was built. Discussing key figures in history in the context of their time, it takes students on a carefully formulated, chronological journey through the build-up of psychology from ancient times to the present, and seeks to draw students into the way science is done, rather than merely presenting them with historical fact. Students will learn not only the "what," but the "why" of the history of psychology and will acquire the necessary background historical material to fully understand those concepts. Organized around a series of moments and cases--such as a shift from scholasticism to rationalism or empiricism, and a shift from idealism to materialism--the book seeks to portray psychology as an on-going, evolving process, rather than a theory.--page i. (shrink)

As a philosopher, psychologist, and physician, the German thinker Hermann Lotze defies classification. Working in the mid-nineteenth-century era of programmatic realism, he critically reviewed and rearranged theories and concepts in books on pathology, physiology, medical psychology, anthropology, history, aesthetics, metaphysics, logic, and religion. Leading anatomists and physiologists reworked his hypotheses about the central and autonomic nervous systems. Dozens of fin-de-siècle philosophical contemporaries emulated him, yet often without acknowledgment, precisely because he had made conjecture and refutation into a method. In (...) spite of Lotze's status as a pivotal figure in nineteenth-century intellectual thought, no complete treatment of his work exists, and certainly no effort to take account of the feminist secondary literature. Hermann Lotze: An Intellectual Biography is the first full-length historical study of Lotze's intellectual origins, scientific community, institutional context, and worldwide reception. (shrink)

In his Contributions to Philosophy, Martin Heidegger introduces "acceleration" as one of the three symptoms--along with "calculation" and the "outbreak of massiveness"--of our technological way of "being-in-the-world." In this article, I unpack the relationship between these symptoms and draw a twofold conclusion. First, interpreting acceleration in terms of time pathologies, I suggest the self is becoming increasingly fragmented and emotionally overwhelmed from chronic sensory arousal and time pressure. This experience makes it difficult for us to qualitatively distinguish what matters to (...) us in our everyday lives, resulting in a pervasive cultural mood of indifference, what Heidegger calls "profound boredom." Second, by drawing on Heidegger's hermeneutic method, I argue that the practice of mainstream psychology, by adopting the reductive methodology of the empirical sciences, largely ignores our accelerated socio-historical situation, resulting in therapeutic models that have a tendency to construct and perpetuate the very pathologies the psychologist is seeking to treat. (shrink)

This article provides a historical perspective on how both American and European psychiatrists have conceptualized and categorized sexual deviance throughout the past 150 years. During this time, quite a number of sexual preferences, desires, and behaviors have been pathologized and depathologized at will, thus revealing psychiatry's constant struggle to distinguish mental disorder--in other words, the "perversions," "sexual deviations," or "paraphilias"--from immoral, unethical, or illegal behavior. This struggle is apparent in the works of 19th- and early-20th-century psychiatrists and sexologists, but it (...) is also present in the more recent psychiatric textbooks and diagnostic manuals, such as the consecutive editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. While much of the historical literature revolves around the controversy over homosexuality, this article also reviews the recent medicohistorical and sociohistorical work on other forms of sexual deviance, including the diagnostic categories listed in the latest edition, the DSM-IV-TR: exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, frotteurism, pedophilia, sexual masochism, sexual sadism, and transvestic fetishism. (shrink)

Historians of psychology have described how the ‘introspection’ of early Wundtian psychology largely came to be ruled out of experimental psychology settings by the mid-20th century. In this paper I take a fresh look at the years before this process was complete – from the vantage point of early ethnographic and psychological field expeditions. Beginning with the psychological research conducted during and after the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to theTorres Straits Islands(CAETS) in 1898,Iwill discuss the importance of the CAETS in the (...) history of anthropology and psychology and explore some possible ways of approaching experimental cognitive psychology ethnographically. I describe the experience of Ludwig Wittgenstein in the Cambridge experimental psychology lab founded after the CAETS by C.S. Myers, focusing on its implications for Wittgenstein’s later thought and for contemporary ‘affect theory’. (shrink)

Psychologists and philosophers have assumed that psychological knowledge is knowledge about, and held by, the individual mind. _Psychological Knowledge_ challenges these views. It argues that bodies of psychological knowledge are social institutions like money or the monarchy, and that mental states are social artefacts like coins or crowns. Martin Kusch takes on arguments of alternative proposals, shows what is wrong with them, and demonstrates how his own social-philosophical approach constitutes an advance. We see that exists a substantial natural amount of (...) philosophical theorising, a body of work that tries to determine the nature and structure of folk psychology. An introduction to the workings of constuctivism, _Psychological Knowledge_ is an insightful introduction to the history of psychology and the recent philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Fundamental causes of the progress and fall of nations.--Distinction between what is substantial and what is only accidental in the life of a nation.--Law of succession between the psychological conditions of a nation.--Harmony between the state and extra-state elements.--Connection between the speculative thought of individuals and the thought of the masses.--The stimulating elements of a nation(s progress.--Influence of the classic pagan religion upon the state.--Influence of Christianity upon the state.--Effects of international intercourse.--Appendix. Geographical influences.

Though the ancient Greek philosophical concept of scholê is usually translated as 'leisure', there is a vast difference between the two. Leisure, derived from Latin licere, has its roots in Roman otium and connotes the uses of free time in ways permitted by the status quo. Scholê is the actualization of mind and one's humanity within a republic that devotes its culture to making such a choice possible. This volume traces the background in Greek culture and the writings of Plato (...) of a daring proposal presented by Aristotle, that scholê is a principle for political organization. The concept of scholê by and large did not survive Aristotle. To sharpen our understanding of scholê the book goes on to identify the concepts of leisure which we have inherited from the intellectuals of the Hellenistic and Roman empires and the early Church Fathers. Scholê also had its contrary ascholia – busyness – which Plato described as a social and psychological pathology and his analysis suggests why, due to these ills, current visions of a leisure society are highly unlikely. (shrink)

In psychiatry there is no sharp boundary between the normal and the pathological. Although clear cases abound, it is often indeterminate whether a particular condition does or does not qualify as a mental disorder. For example, definitions of ‘subthreshold disorders’ and of the ‘prodromal stages’ of diseases are notoriously contentious. -/- Philosophers and linguists call concepts that lack sharp boundaries, and thus admit of borderline cases, ‘vague’. Although blurred boundaries between the normal and the pathological are a recurrent (...) theme in many publications concerned with the classification of mental disorders, systematic approaches that take into account philosophical reflections on vagueness are rare. This book provides interdisciplinary discussions about vagueness in psychiatry by bringing together scholars from psychiatry, psychology, philosophy, history, and law. It draws together various lines of inquiry into the nature of gradations between mental health and disease and discusses the individual and societal consequences of dealing with blurred boundaries in medical practice, forensic psychiatry, and beyond. -/- Part I starts with an overview chapter that helps readers to navigate through the philosophy of vagueness and through the various debates surrounding demarcation problems in the classification and diagnosis of mental illness. Part II encompasses historical and recent philosophical positions on gradualist approaches to health and disease. Part III approaches the vagueness of present psychiatric classification systems, and the debates concerning their revisions by scrutinizing controversial categories, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, and the difficulties of day-to-day diagnostic and therapeutic practice. Part IV finally focuses on social, moral, and legal implications that arise when being mentally ill is a matter of degree. (shrink)

This article addresses the precarious place of transgender and gender non-cis persons in relation to their discrimination-protections in recent legal, medical, and ethical policies in the United States. At present, there exists a contradiction such that trans persons are considered "pathological" enough that they are included in the latest iteration of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V) as "gender dysphoric," but they are not included in the category of "disabled" under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). (...) As such, trans persons in America are subject to the stigma of pathology (albeit with medical treatment) without the full protections of the ADA. By contrast, transgender and non-cis-gender Americans find their queer cohorts who are HIV-positive to be fully protected by the ADA. We ask whether transgender and non-cis-gender persons should embrace their (already pathologized) personhood as a disability. Sometimes "choosing disability" affords more rights than it deploys stigma. (shrink)

In order to address why the number of patients suffering from anxiety and depression are seemingly exploding in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) countries, it is sensible to look at the evolution of human fearfulness responses. Here, we draw on Veit's pathological complexity framework to advance Grossmann's goal of re-characterizing human fearfulness as an adaptive trait.

In the World Library of Psychologists series, international experts themselves present career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces – extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, and their major practical theoretical contributions. Elizabeth Valentine has an international reputation as an eminent scholar and pioneer in the field of philosophy and history of psychology. This selection brings together some of her best work over the last thirty years. A specially written introduction gives an overview of (...) her career and contextualises the selection in relation to changes in the field during this time. The first section on 'Philosophy' covers work on different theoretical approaches to psychology, introspection and the study of consciousness, the mind-body problem, and different types of explanation in psychology including reductionism. The second section, 'From Philosophy to History', includes work on the philosophical psychologists G. F. Stout and James Sully, among others. The third section on 'History' covers Valentine's more recent historical work on the development of psychology in London – both institutional and biographical – and includes accounts of both Bedford College and University College, and the role of pioneer women psychologists. The book enables the reader to trace developments in the philosophy and history of psychology over the last thirty years. It will appeal to anyone with interests in these areas as well as being an invaluable resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in conceptual and historical issues. (shrink)

'the whole work is remarkably fresh, vivid and attractively written psychologists will be grateful that a work of this kind has been done ... by one who has the scholarship, science, and philosophical training that are requisite for the task' - Mind This renowned three-volume collection records chronologically the steps by which psychology developed from the time of the early Greek thinkers and the first writings on the nature of the mind, through to the 1920s and such modern preoccupations as (...) criminal and animal psychology. It is only in relatively recent times that psychology has been considered an empirical science independent of philosophy. Brett's account is thus concerned with the broadest definition of psychology, taking in such philosophical aspects as the relation of mind and body, thought processes, etc. For each period he gives an account of the state of the sciences which influenced psychology, the state of psychology itself, the influence psychology had on other areas, and the applications of psychological theories. Examining a huge range of figures, he describes their attitudes on fundamental questions and their contribution to the progress of the subject, as well as the history of the different methods of inquiry. The thinkers he discusses range from Aristotle, Democritus, Socrates, Plato, and Xenocrates to Proclus, the Arabian teachers, Magnus, Duns Scotus, and Ockham from Galileo, Descartes, Gassendi, and Cudworth to Locke, Berkeley, Condillac, and Kant from Reid, Stewart, Herbart, and Schopenhauer to Bain, Spencer, Mill and Darwin. Surprisingly clear and easy to read, Brett's account succeeds in illuminating the nature of psychology as well as its history. It remains a classic overview of the subject from its broad roots in philosophy through to the independent empirical science of the modern era. --a scarce work, rarely found as a complete set --a classic work - all historians of psychology and philosophy should have A History of Psychology. (shrink)