On Madness: Understanding the Psychotic Mind

Description

Can we reach the psychotic subject in their delusion? Psychopathological theorists often try to find a way to characterise this subject's inner predicament so that their opaque utterances and actions will now rationally hang together. In this pathbreaking work, philosopher and clinical psychologist Richard G. T. Gipps demonstrates how such efforts at rational retrieval actually result in us setting our face against the psychotic subject in their distress. Bringing together patient memoir, psychopathological observation and philosophical thought, Gipps offers a profound alternative. On the one hand he shows how, by appreciating just why we can't locate rational order within psychotic thought, we can better understand what it is to suffer delusion and psychosis. On the other, he recovers for us the value of such expressive, motivational and symbolic forms of understanding as only become available once we've been turned away at reason's door. In such ways Gipps not only solves the psychopathological problem of delusion, but also shows us how to bear a truer witness to the psychotic subject in their brokenness, pain and despair. Cover Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Contents Acknowledgements Introduction The problem of delusion An apophatic psychopathology Retrieval Deflection Outline 1 Mental Illness Introduction Illness Mental illness Mental illness Maintenance and motivation Suffering ‘Monstrosity’ Conclusions 2 Delusion’s Rational Irretrievability Introduction Delusion’s marks Jaspers vs. the psychologists What is Jaspers’ ‘empathic understanding’? Delusion as epistemically primitive Psychological theories of delusion Contexts of enquiry and treatment Conclusion: Incomprehension as a route to understanding 3 Reality Contact Introduction Reality lost and found Misrepresentation On being hinged otherwise Reality contact as readiness Reality contact as engaged activity Reality contact as synchronized interaction On being unhinged 4 A World of One’s Own Introduction Schizophrenic autism Autism and fantasy Loss of reality testing Autism and motivation Cataphatic approaches to autism An apophatic approach to apophany 5 The Divided Self Introduction From automatism to passivity experience Cataphatic explanations of passivity phenomena Passivity phenomena: An apophatic understanding 6 Self and Other Introduction Projection and introjection The ego boundary: Cataphatic attempts On the ego Conclusions 7 Hallucination Introduction Hallucination as percept Implicit presences, inadvertent actions Projections and anticipations On hallucination’s alleged constitution What it is to hallucinate Hallucination and lost reality contact Hallucination, suffering, and mental illness 8 Disordered Thought Introduction Thought disorder and discourse Thought disorder and sociality Thought disorder and emotion Conclusions 9 Psychotic Symbolization Introduction Delusional expression as metaphoric Delusion and the pre/trans fallacy Psychological symbolization Examples of psychological symbolization The psychology of psychological symbolization Psychotic symbolization 10 The Politics of Insanity Ascription Introduction Realism Idealism Relativism Rethinking the question Psychiatric responsibility Notes References Index