Psychiatry as Ideology

2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niall McLaren
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Formal Theory ◽  
Daily Practice ◽  
Biological Psychiatry ◽  
Brain Disorder ◽  
Laboratory Science ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Many ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
New Research

Background: The current psychiatric literature carries numerous papers arguing that the correct approach to mental disorder is to see it as a special form of brain disorder, whose precise biochemical and genetic causes will be revealed by the normal methods of laboratory science. In particular, these claims are repeated in numerous papers outlining and advocating the new Research Domain Criteria project of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health.Material: An extensive search of the literature shows that not one of these biologically oriented papers ever provides citations or references to authorities such that the claim “mental disorder is brain disorder” is established to the standard required of valid scientific claims.Discussion: As it stands, the notion that mental disorder is brain disorder is unsubstantiated. In particular, no authorities in the field of biological psychiatry have ever demonstrated that they have a formal theory of mental disorder, or a model of mental disorder to guide their daily practice, their teaching or their research.Conclusion: This means that biological psychiatry has the status of an ideology only, and the many papers arguing its case meet the definition of propaganda.

Monist Models of Mind and Biological Psychiatry

2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niall McLaren
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Biological Psychiatry ◽  
Rational Basis ◽  
Brain Disorder

Theories of psychiatry do not exist an intellectual vacuum. They must mesh at many points with other bodies of knowledge. Biological psychiatry tries to prove that mental disorder and brain disorder are one and the same thing. This has no rational basis in any accepted theory of mind. This article examines two other philosophical theories that biological psychiatrists might use as their rationale: Dennett’s functionalism and Searle’s natural biologism. However, these avowedly antidualist theories fail, as they secretly rely on irreducibly dualist notions to complete their explanatory accounts of mind. Biological psychiatry is thus an ideology, not a scientific theory.

scholarly journals The Romantic subject as an absolutely autonomous individual

2004 ◽  
Vol 37 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 73-85
Author(s):  
Miljana Cunta
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Mystical Experience ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Romantic Period ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Many ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Treat All

This essay deals with the Romantic subject as a philosophical and literary category. Recog­ nizing the diversity and complexity of literary production in the Romantic period, this study does not attempt to treat all the many aspects of this subject, but it instead focuses upan a few: the role of nature, the status of imagination, and the subject's relation to the transcendental reality. In its rela­ tion to these issues, the Romantic subject appears as an absolutely autonomous individual, one who finds no satisfaction in claims to transcendental certainty made by any source outside the self, but relies on his immanent powers to achieve the self-awareness that is the only sure access to truth. Special attention is given to the Romantic mystical experience, whereby the subject eames into relation with the transcendental reality. Here what are termed mystical feelings are contrasted with religious feelings proper so as to stress the peculiarities of the Romantic religious experience. In providing a theoretical framewok for the religious experience, we have recourse to Rudolf Otto's definition of the "numinous," which denotes the feeling response of the subject to the divine aspect of reality. In comparison with the true religious experience, the Romantic type is seen as pseudo­- religious, thus confirming the proposed definition of the Romantic subject as a truly autonomous individual. The essay's second part contains an interpretation of selected poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge with a view of extrapolating from them some aspects of the Romantic subject.

Special, radical, failure of reduction in psychiatry

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Ross
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Brain Structure ◽  
Causal Structure ◽  
Network Models ◽  
Gambling Addiction ◽  
Brain Disorder ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Special Radical ◽  
Intentional Relationships

AbstractUse of network models to identify causal structure typically blocks reduction across the sciences. Entanglement of mental processes with environmental and intentional relationships, as Borsboom et al. argue, makes reduction of psychology to neuroscience particularly implausible. However, in psychiatry, a mental disorder can involve no brain disorder at all, even when the former crucially depends on aspects of brain structure. Gambling addiction constitutes an example.

Problems in English Communicating Skills for Learners of English

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (07) ◽  
pp. 20484-20491
Author(s):  
Dr. Ishag Adam Hassan Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
English Language ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Daily Practice ◽  
Small Component ◽  
Curriculum Review ◽  
Comprehension Skills ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The University ◽  
Reading Comprehension Skills

This paper is devoted to presenting the methods in English communicating skills for Learners of English in general and the problems specific to University of Bahri. English language major’s graduates then; it discusses the notion of communicative competence, and defines strategic competence. It also briefly deals with the various definitions of communication strategies and taxonomies of conversation strategies. Also, I give brief definition of the word conversation, that is the act of talking together or exchange ideas, opinions, skills, and information. As accustomed, speaking is natural and automatic but communication is an art which must be learned and practiced. Also the aim of this paper is to present you with suitable suggestions about how you can solve problems while reading English? In order to comply with this objective: we considered two variables. The first one is that within our daily practice at the university we have students with different abilities while reading English. Therefore, we need to help them increase the ability in reading comprehension. However, we don’t have enough teachers and needed resources to supply them with the help they need. The second variable is related to the fact that at University there are different centers where the students’ skills can improve and their reading comprehension skills deficiencies could be overcome by getting help from the teachers. This study is small component of a larger curriculum review exercise. The findings of study in general suggest that both students and English language lecturers were in agreement that Sudanese students had a problem in writing and speaking English and due to that the conversational problems are raised.      Finally, the paper concludes by representing the pedagogical implications of conversation strategies.

Religious Narrative

2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-9
Author(s):  
Armin Geertz
Keyword(s):  
Special Issue ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Religious Narrative ◽  
The Many ◽  
Definition Of

This introduction to the special issue on narrative discusses various ways of approaching religious narrative. It looks at various evolutionary hypotheses and distinguishes between three fundamental aspects of narrative: 1. the neurobiological, psychological, social and cultural mechanisms and processes, 2. the many media and methods used in human communication, and 3. the variety of expressive genres. The introduction ends with a definition of narrative.

Impulsive/Compulsive Sexual Behavior: Assessment and Treatment

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eli Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Behavior ◽  
Diagnostic Criteria ◽  
Treatment Approach ◽  
Assessment Methods ◽  
Compulsive Sexual Behavior ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Assessment And Treatment ◽  
Controversial Area ◽  
The Many ◽  
New Research

There is a growing recognition among clinicians that any type of sexual behavior can become pathologically impulsive or compulsive. There is quite a bit of debate about terminology for this condition, the diagnostic criteria, assessment methods and treatment approaches. In the absence of clear consensus, clinicians are struggling with how to help the many men and women who suffer and seek help from this type of problem. This chapter will review the author’s assessment and treatment approach. Clinicians will need to keep abreast of the literature as new research evolves and follow the continued debate around this controversial area.

Slave Women and Their Descendants among the Upper Classes in Tetouan, Morocco (1859–1956): Between Recognition and Conflict

2020 ◽  
pp. 036319902096739
Author(s):  
Josep Lluís Mateo Dieste
Keyword(s):  
Skin Color ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Slave Women ◽  
The Status ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Determinant Factor

In the Arab world, the recognized children of elite men and slave women could adopt the status of their father, ignoring the slave origin of the mother, owing to a system of patrilineal transmission. This regime co-existed with negative stereotypes toward slaves and blackness, despite the very fact that—as this study of notable families in Tetouan between 1859 and 1956 demonstrates—skin color was not the determinant factor to form part of this group. Rather, it was based on the social definition of filiation, leading to legal disputes between family members to delineate the boundaries of kinship.

scholarly journals Language Family Engineering with Product Lines of Multi-level Models

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan de Lara ◽  
Esther Guerra
Keyword(s):  
Software Engineering ◽  
Arbitrary Number ◽  
Formal Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Product Lines ◽  
Modelling Languages ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractModelling is an essential activity in software engineering. It typically involves two meta-levels: one includes meta-models that describe modelling languages, and the other contains models built by instantiating those meta-models. Multi-level modelling generalizes this approach by allowing models to span an arbitrary number of meta-levels. A scenario that profits from multi-level modelling is the definition of language families that can be specialized (e.g., for different domains) by successive refinements at subsequent meta-levels, hence promoting language reuse. This enables an open set of variability options given by all possible specializations of the language family. However, multi-level modelling lacks the ability to express closed variability regarding the availability of language primitives or the possibility to opt between alternative primitive realizations. This limits the reuse opportunities of a language family. To improve this situation, we propose a novel combination of product lines with multi-level modelling to cover both open and closed variability. Our proposal is backed by a formal theory that guarantees correctness, enables top-down and bottom-up language variability design, and is implemented atop the MetaDepth multi-level modelling tool.

scholarly journals Has the Credibility of the Social Sciences Been Credibly Destroyed? Reanalyzing the “Many Analysts, One Data Set” Project

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312110244
Author(s):  
Katrin Auspurg ◽  
Josef Brüderl
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Causal Reasoning ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Skin Tone ◽  
Data Set ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Many ◽  
Definition Of

In 2018, Silberzahn, Uhlmann, Nosek, and colleagues published an article in which 29 teams analyzed the same research question with the same data: Are soccer referees more likely to give red cards to players with dark skin tone than light skin tone? The results obtained by the teams differed extensively. Many concluded from this widely noted exercise that the social sciences are not rigorous enough to provide definitive answers. In this article, we investigate why results diverged so much. We argue that the main reason was an unclear research question: Teams differed in their interpretation of the research question and therefore used diverse research designs and model specifications. We show by reanalyzing the data that with a clear research question, a precise definition of the parameter of interest, and theory-guided causal reasoning, results vary only within a narrow range. The broad conclusion of our reanalysis is that social science research needs to be more precise in its “estimands” to become credible.

scholarly journals Rethinking Southern Europe: Society, Networks and Politics

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Alan Granadino ◽  
Eirini Karamouzi ◽  
Rinna Kullaa
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Eurozone Crisis ◽  
Development Education ◽  
Family Structures ◽  
Conceptual Clarity ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
The Status ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Definition Of

Writing and researching Southern Europe as a symbiotic area has always presented a challenging task. Historians and political scientists such as Stanley Payne, Edward Malefakis, Giulio Sapelli, and Roberto Aliboni have studied the concept of Southern Europe and its difficult paths to modernity. They have been joined by sociologists and anthropologists who have debated the existence of a Southern European paradigm in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the arduous transformation of the region's welfare systems, economic development, education and family structures. These scholarly attempts to understand the specificities of Southern Europe date back to the concerns of Western European Cold War strategists in the 1970s, many of whom were worried about the status quo of the region in the aftermath of the fall of the dictatorships. But this geographical and geopolitical definition of the area did not necessarily follow existing cultural, political and economic patterns. Once the Eurozone crisis hit in the 2000s these questions came back with renewed force but with even less conceptual clarity, as journalists and pundits frequently gestured towards vague notions of what they considered to be ‘Southern Europe’.

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