The metaphor of mental illness / Neil Pickering.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pickering, Neil.

Series:

International perspectives in philosophy and psychiatry

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mental illness--Philosophy.

Mental illness.

Metaphor.

Mental Disorders.

Philosophy, Medical.

Medical Subjects:

Mental Disorders.

Philosophy, Medical.

Physical Description:

194 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2006.

Summary:

Despite the currency of the notion of mental illness, its legal and medical legitimacy, and the panoply of psychiatric and other mental health services claiming to treat it, there are those who take the radical sceptical line that mental illness is a fabrication. This is a book that takes this sceptical line seriously-perhaps more seriously than almost any other book not written by sceptics themselves. The Metaphor of Mental Illness is a revaluation of the traditional philosophical disputes about the existence and nature of mental illness. Sceptics and apologists have generally focused on the legitimacy of extending illness from the physical to the mental, by means of the likeness argument. This says that claimed mental illnesses, from ADHD to schizophrenia, really are illnesses providing they are sufficiently similar to agreed physical illnesses. This book proposes that this argument is flawed: the likenesses to which the argument appeals appear when these examples have been categorized as illnesses, rather than the categorization being evidenced by, or derived from, the likenesses. The categorization of ADHD, schizophrenia, and so on, as illnesses is a matter of metaphor: an imaginative shift into the illness category.

The book puts forward a new view and resolution of the issues, to which it carefully guides the reader. It is a book that engages with many styles of analysis, but is accessible to anyone not familiar with these. It is full of examples, both historical and modern. It is a book for the postgraduate student coming to grips with the issues for the first time, for the researcher who is interested in a new approach to the issues, and for mental health workers such as psychiatrists who are interested in the fundamental assumptions of their field of work.

Contents:

Introduction: the existence of mental illness

The likeness argument

The categorical argument

Metaphor

Two metaphors from physical medicine

The metaphor of mental illness

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, social construction, and metaphor

Metaphors and models.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [179]-187) and index.

ISBN:

0198530870

0198530889

OCLC:

62324769

Publisher Number:

9780198530879

9780198530886