Niall Mclaren

Broschiertes Buch

Humanizing Madness

Psychiatry and the Cognitive Neurosciences

Beschreibung

An application of the philosophy of science to psychiatry Although it's been 140 years since Maudley's groundbreaking treatise, modern psychiatry is in a state of intellectual collapse. No psychiatrist practicing today can point to a universally agreed model of mental disorder which explains the common observations of mental disorder, dictates a research program and ordains a form of management. This book, the result of thirty years research in the philosophy of science, takes each of the major theories in psychiatry and demonstrates conclusively that it is so flawed as to be beyond salvation. It goes further, in that the author outlines a model of mental function which both satisfies the essential requirements of any scientific model, and shows how the phenomena of mental disorder can be described in a parsimonious dualist model which leads directly to a humanist form of management of the most widespread form of disability in the world today. "This book is a tour de force. It demonstrates a tremendous amount of erudition, intelligence and application in the writer. It advances an interesting and plausible mechanism for many forms of human distress. It is an important work that deserves to take its place among the classics in books about psychiatry." -Robert Rich, PhD, AnxietyAndDepression-Help.com About the Author Niall McLaren has been an M.D. and practicing psychiatrist since 1977. Since then, he has undertaken a far-reaching research program, some of which has previously been published. For six years, while working in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia, he was the world's most isolated psychiatrist. He is married with two children and lives in a tropical house hidden in the bush near Darwin, Australia. From Future Psychiatry Press www.FuturePsychiatry.com an imprint of Loving Healing Press

Autor

Niall McLaren is an Australian psychiatrist, author and critic. He was born and educated in rural Western Australia, graduating in medicine at the University of WA in Perth in 1970. He completed his postgraduate training in psychiatry in 1977 and subsequently worked in prisons and then in the Veterans' Hospital, with a year's break working in the far southern region of Thailand. From 1983-87, he studied philosophy in order to undertake a PhD jointly in psychiatry and philosophy of science. In 1987, he left Perth city to travel to the remote Kimberley Region of Western Australia as the region's first psychiatrist. Covering an area larger than California, with no staff, no hospital beds, no clinic and not even an office, nearly 2000km from the nearest psychiatrist, he was the world's most isolated psychiatrist. While there, he continued studying and writing and began publishing work highly critical of mainstream psychiatry. After six years in the bush, he moved to Darwin, the capital of Australia's Northern Territory, first as chief psychiatrist for the Top End, then in private practice, where he was closely involved with the large military population. He has since moved to Brisbane, in Queensland, and is emphatic that there will be no more moves. He retired from clinical work during the pandemic and now has an honorary position with the Dept of Philosophy at University of Queensland. When he graduated in psychiatry, he was aware that the field was not what it claimed to be. It was clear that psychia¬trists routinely made major claims on the nature of the mind-brain relationship and mental disorder that were not justified in the literature and, he realised, could never be justified. This led him to the philosophy of science which established that psychiatry lacked a formal model of mental disorder. In turn, this problem arose just because it had no theory of mind. As a result, modern psychiatry lacks a basis in any known concept of science. It is, in fact, at best a proto¬science and, at worst, crude and highly misleading pseudoscience. This author's work is highly original and owes nothing to any psychiatrists, living or dead. Almost invariably, his work provokes bitter antagonism from mainstream psychiatrists. For nearly half a century, orthodox psychiatry has committed itself totally to the reductionist biological approach to mental disorder, with no possible alternatives. Despite massive increases in expenditure on mental health, there is absolutely no evidence to support the oft-repeated claims that psychiatry is making great advances and people are better off than they have ever been. Every figure indicates that as psychiatry extends its reach, the mental health of the population declines. McLaren argues that this is just because psychiatry is not a science. Because it lacks a formal model of its field of study, mental disorder, psychiatry is perpetually at the mercy of social and political fads and fashions. He maintains that biological psychiatry is nothing more than a passing fad and must eventually go the way of psychoanalysis, behaviourism and possession theory. In the meantime, it is doing an immeasurable amount of damage. He recently published the results of a lifetime of work on a model of mind for psychiatry, the biocognitive model, which leads directly to a model of mental disorder. This is the first time in the history of psychiatry that such a model has been available. The present work, a survey of all theories available to psychiatry, provides a solid critical foundation to complete the project. Since theories in psychiatry are so weak and poorly developed, this volume also surveys a group of well-known philosophers, concluding that none of their work can be extended to provide a model of mental disorder. The clear implication is that their work is insufficient to the task of providing a general account of mental life, but this needs further analysis on a much broader scale.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Future Psychiatry Press
• Seitenzahl: 268
• Erscheinungstermin: 6. September 2007
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 254mm x 178mm x 15mm
• Gewicht: 511g
• ISBN-13: 9781932690392
• ISBN-10: 1932690395
• Artikelnr.: 23130595