Continental Philosophy of Psychiatry

This book explores how the continental philosophical tradition in the 20 th century attempted to understand madness as madness. It traces the paradoxical endeavour of reason attempting to understand madness without dissolving the inherent strangeness and otherness of madness. It provides a comprehensive overview of the contributions of phenomenology, critical theory, psychoanalysis, post-structuralism and anti-psychiatry to continental philosophy and psychiatry. The book outlines an intellectual tradition of psychiatry that is both fascinated by and withdraws from madness. Madness is a lure for philosophy in two senses; as both trap and provocation. It is a trap because this philosophical tradition constructs an otherness of madness so profound, that it condemns madness to silence. However, the idea of madness as another world is also a fertile provocation because it respects the non-identity of madness to reason. The book concludes with some critical reflections on the role of madness in contemporary philosophical thought.

Provides an overview of phenomenology, psychoanalysis, critical theory and post-structuralist traditions Gives accessible and comprehensive introductions to key concepts, texts and thinkers Provides a vital contribution to scholars studying the contemporary role of psychiatry and its conceptual history

Auteur
Alastair Morgan is a Senior Lecturer, University of Manchester, UK.

Texte du rabat

This book explores how the continental philosophical tradition in the 20th century attempted to understand madness as madness. It traces the paradoxical endeavour of reason attempting to understand madness without dissolving the inherent strangeness and otherness of madness. It provides a comprehensive overview of the contributions of phenomenology, critical theory, psychoanalysis, post-structuralism and anti-psychiatry to continental philosophy and psychiatry. The book outlines an intellectual tradition of psychiatry that is both fascinated by and withdraws from madness. Madness is a lure for philosophy in two senses; as both trap and provocation. It is a trap because this philosophical tradition constructs an otherness of madness so profound, that it condemns madness to silence. However, the idea of madness as another world is also a fertile provocation because it respects the non-identity of madness to reason. The book concludes with some critical reflections on the role of madness in contemporary philosophical thought.

Résumé
"In tracing the continental philosophy of psychiatry tradition, Morgan does indeed succeed in rescuing it from obscurity, in ways that will benefit many. For researchers, the book opens many exegetical and conceptual questions, or returns to old questions from a fresh perspective. For clinicians, a rich and pluralistic understanding of madness emerges, holding space for its difference while recognising the contexts of violence and contradiction that produce it. ... As such, there are many who stand to gain from engaging with this important book." (Robert Chapman, Psychiatrie Filosofie, psychiatrieenfilosofie.nl, June, 2023)

Contenu
Chapter 1: Introduction.- Part I: Three Inclusive Exclusions.- Chapter 2: A subtle, pervasive and strangely uncertain light: Jaspers on understanding madness.- Chapter 3: As strange to me as the birds in the garden: Bleuler, Jung and the creation of schizophrenia.- Chapter 4: A distance from all that is human: Freud and Psychosis.- Part II: Through a glass darkly.- Chapter 5: Vital Contact.- Chapter 6: Ipseity.- Chapter 7: The Body.- Chapter 8: Being-in-the-world.- Part III: It's a Mad world.- Chapter 9: The world cannot acknowledge its own madness: alienation and the destruction of experience.- Chapter 10: Reification and Schizophrenia a socio-pathological parallelism.- Chapter 11: Beware, Marcuse!.- Chapter 12: O my body. . .: Fanon and the pathologies of recognition.- Part IV: A certain madness must watch over thinking.- Chapter 13: In the distance of madness: Foucault and the History of Madness.- Chapter 14: The lure of madness.- Chapter 15: Lacan: the shadow of madness.- Chapter 16: The ineffable and limit-experience.- Part V: Anti -Psychiatry and madness.- Chapter 17: Capitalism and schizophrenia.- Chapter 18: A germinal anti-psychiatry: R.D. Laing's wild empathy.- Chapter 19: It all began with a 'no': The Institution negated.- Chapter 20: Epilogue The end of madness?.