Nature and Narrative
An Introduction to the New Philosophy of Psychiatry

Part of the series "International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry", this work aims to build links between the sciences and humanities in psychiatry. It is of interest to those with practical experience of mental health issues, whether as providers or as users/consumers of services, as well as to philosophers and social scientists.

"Nature and Narrative" is the launch volume in a new series of books entitled "International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry". The series will aim to build links between the sciences and humanities in psychiatry. Our ability to decipher mental disorders depends to a unique extent on both the sciences and the humanities. Science provides insight into the 'causes' of a problem, enabling us to formulate an 'explanation', and the humanities provide insight into its 'meanings' and helps with our 'understanding'. Psychiatry, if it is to develop as a balanced discipline, must draw on input from both of these spheres. "Nature (for causes) and Narrative (for meanings)" will help define the series as a whole by touching on a range of issues relevant to this 'border country'. With contributions from an international star-studded cast, representing the field of psychiatry, psychology and philosophy, this volume will set the scene for this new interdisciplinary field. This will be of interest to all those with practical experience of mental health issues, whether as providers or as users/consumers of services, as well as to philosophers, social scientists, and bioethicists.

1. Past improbable, future possible: the renaissance in philosophy and psychiatry
SECTION 1 - RECYCLING HISTORY?
2. Towards a psyche for psychiatry
SECTION 2 - A NEW KIND OF PHILOSOPHY
3. Wittgenstein's method and psychoanalysis
4. How can a mind be sick?
SECTION 3 - A NEW KIND OF ETHICS
5. Psychiatry and the law
6. Understanding dementia: a hermeneutic perspective
SECTION 4 - A NEW KIND OF PSYCHOLOGY
7. Meaning and causal explanations in the behavioural sciences
8. Subjectivity and the possibility of psychiatry
9. Form and content: the role of discourse in mental disorder
10. Meaning and causes of delusions
SECTION 5 - A NEW KIND OF PHENOMENOLOGY
11. The phenomenology of body dysmorphic disorder: a Sartrean analysis
12. Putting the epoche into practice: schizophrenic experience as illustrating the phenomenological exploration of consciousness
13. How can the phenomenological-anthropological approach contribute to diagnosis and classification in psychiatry?
14. Incomprehensibility
SECTION 6 - A NEW KIND OF SCIENCE
15. Anxiety - animal reactions and the embodiment of meaning
16. Linguistic markers of recovery: semantic, syntactic and pragmatic changes in the use of first person pronouns in the course of psychotherapy
SECTION 7 - FUTURE POSSIBLE?
17. Magic, science and equality of human wits