Mental Illness

Description

The very idea of mental illness is contested. Given its differences from physical illnesses, is it right to count it, and particular mental illnesses, as genuinely medical as opposed to moral matters? One debate concerns its value-ladenness, which has been used by anti-psychiatrists to argue that it does not exist. Recent attempts to define mental illness divide both on the presence of values and on their consequences. Philosophers and psychiatrists have explored the nature of the general kinds that mental illnesses might comprise, influenced by psychiatric taxonomies such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and the International Classification of Diseases, and the rise of a rival biological 'meta-taxonomy': the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC). The assumption that the concept of mental illness has a culturally invariant core has also been questioned. This Element serves as a guide to these contested debates. Cover Title page Copyright page Mental Illness Contents Introduction 1 Mental Illness and Psychiatric Diagnosis A Thumbnail Account of the Recent History of the Classification of Mental Illnesses The DSM-5 Definition of Disorder Summary 2 Philosophical Analyses of Mental Illness: Szasz, Kendell, and Boorse Szasz’s Null Hypothesis Summary 3 Philosophical Analyses of Mental Illness: Wakefield, Fulford, and Pickering Wakefield’s Harmful Dysfunction Account Fulford’s Value-Laden Failure of Ordinary Doing Account Pickering and the Likeness Argument Summary 4 Vindicating Kinds Different Kinds of CategoriesKinds of Mental Illness Mental Illnesses as Mechanistic Property Clusters (MPCs) RDoC and the Proper Identification of Psychiatric Kinds Summary 5 Hacking on Looping or Interactive Kinds Looping or Interactive Kinds and Social Constructionism Why Looping or Interactive? Are Looping or Interactive Kinds Distinct from Natural Kinds? Summary 6 Transcultural Psychiatry and Cultural Concepts of Distress Cultural Factors in DSM-5 Three Models of Cultural Concepts of Distress A Two-Factor Pathogenic-Pathoplastic Model Two Single-Factor Models of Cultural Variation: Pathoplastic-Only and Pathogenic-Only The Status of Khyal Cap Summary Conclusions What Conclusions can be drawn for the Status of Mental Illness? Further Reading References