Louis C. Charland

(1958 - 2021)

In Passion and reason, acclaimed social psychologist Richard Lazarus and co-author Bernice Lazarus attempt a project they say is unique. Their goal is to provide a popular account of the emotions for the lay reader which is comprehensive, does not over-simplify, and can serve as a guide to greater self-knowledge and understanding. The book is intended to strike a balance between the naive `formulaic genre' of typical self-help books on the subject, while at the same time avoiding the complexity and technical jargon typical of academic treatises. The theoretical basis of the book is Lazarus's own work on emotion, of which Emotion and adaptation (Lazarus, 1991) is the most recent and thorough expression...

La thérapie rationnelle des émotions est basée sur l’hypothèse qu’un trouble de la pensée conduit à des troubles du sentiment qui eux-mêmes conduisent à des troubles de comportement. Du point de vue thérapeutique, la stratégie consiste à corriger les sentiments et le comportement en modifiant le trouble de raisonnement. Cette forme très en vogue de psychothérapie des troubles émotionnels fournit une illustration intéressante des relations nomologiques intriquées qui peuvent exister entre les patrons relativement fixes d’états émotionnels, d’états comportementaux et d’états sensoriels physiologiques. En tant que telle, elle fournit une source d’évidences plausible en faveur de l’hypothèse que les émotions sont une forme spécialisée de système nomologique ou une « espèce ». Le succès de la théorie rationnelle des émotions jette le doute sur le mantra philosophique actuel qui refuse aux émotions le statut d’espèce naturelle, car elle suggère précisément l’inverse, c’est-à-dire que les émotions sont bel et bien une forme d’« espèce naturelle ». Cet appui n’a pas été pris en considération dans le débat en cours au sujet du statut d’espèce naturelle de l’émotion. Il est particulièrement intéressant de noter la façon dont il nous force à repenser la notion d’espèce naturelle telle qu’elle est employée dans les débats philosophiques sur la question. D’autres formulations qui correspondent mieux aux pratiques des sciences concernées pourraient être nécessaires. [English abstrast] Rational Emotive Therapy is based on the hypothesis that disordered thinking leads to disordered feeling, which then leads to disordered behavior. Therapeutically, the strategy it is to correct disordered feeling and behavior by changing the disordered thinking. This immensely popular form of psychotherapy for emotional disorders provides an interesting illustration of the intricate law-like relationships that can exist between relatively fixed patterns of emotional, behavioral, and physiological sensory states. As such, it provides a plausible source of evidence for the hypothesis that emotions form a specialized law-like system or ‘kind’. Evidence of the success of Rational Emotive Therapy casts doubt on the contemporary philosophical mantra that emotions do not form a natural kind. It suggests precisely the opposite, namely, that emotions do form a ‘natural kind’ of some sort. This evidence has not been considered in the ongoing debate over the natural kind status of emotion. Especially interesting is how it forces us to rethink the way in which the notion of a natural kind is usually deployed in philosophical debates in this area. Alternative formulations more in line with the practices of the relevant sciences may be needed

Heroin prescription involves the medical provision of heroin in the treatment of heroin addiction. Rudimentary clinical trials on that treatment modality have been carried out and others are currently underway or in development. However, it is questionable whether subjects considered for such trials are mentally competent to consent to them. The problem has not been sufficiently appreciated in ethical and clinical discussions of the topic. The challenges involved throw new light on the role of value and accountability in contemporary discussions of mental competence.

Louis Charland's ‘Technological reason and the regulation of emotion’ focuses on a specific area, that of the emotions, in which he sees a problematic dominance of the technical attitude. He argues that our technologically oriented psychiatry has taken an instrumentalist approach to regulation of emotion that severely limits and distorts the role of emotion in psychiatric practice. A prominent example is the exclusion of moral judgments and values, emotion-laden aspects of experience, from psychotherapy because they do not fit the technical model. To illustrate his point, Charland both contrasts the modern notion of emotion with the traditional notion of passion, and our contemporary practice of technically regulated emotion with the ‘moral treatment’ of the nineteenth century.