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The Next Hundred YearsIn K. W. M. Fulford, Martin Davies, Richard Gipps, George Graham, John Sadler, Giovanni Stanghellini & Tim Thornton (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy and psychiatry, Oxford University Press. 2013.This chapter introduces the edited volume, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry. Published in 2013, the centenary of Karl Jaspers' General Psychopathology, the chapter draws lessons from the last hundred years for the coming century. No predictions are made. Instead, five 'conditions for flourishing' are set out: 1) Particular Problems - the importance of focussing on well-defined particular problems rather than general theory building, 2) Product- orientation - remaining always resp…Read more
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2IntroductionIn K. W. M. Fulford, Martin Davies, Richard Gipps, George Graham, John Sadler, Giovanni Stanghellini & Tim Thornton (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy and psychiatry, Oxford University Press. 2013.The editorial introduction sets the stage for the chapter by identifying the roles that concepts and categories play not just in the field of mental health medicine but in the human mind itself. Then, each chapter is summarized or highlighted.
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1IntroductionIn K. W. M. Fulford, Martin Davies, Richard Gipps, George Graham, John Sadler, Giovanni Stanghellini & Tim Thornton (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy and psychiatry, Oxford University Press. 2013.In this introduction to Section VI, the thrust of the component chapters is described. The classification and diagnosis of mental disorders collects a number of philosophical challenges to the field that call for responses from a variety of philosophical resources: hermeneutics, phenomenology, philosophy of mind, narrative theory, philosophy of science, epistemology-to name a few. The authors in this section address the general challenges in the classification of psychopathology, as well as addr…Read more
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Cognitive Behavior TherapyIn K. W. M. Fulford, Martin Davies, Richard Gipps, George Graham, John Sadler, Giovanni Stanghellini & Tim Thornton (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy and psychiatry, Oxford University Press. 2013.Cognitive behavior therapy theorists propose that disturbances in cognition underlie and maintain much emotional disturbance. Accordingly the cognitive addition to behavioral therapy typically consists in collaboratively noticing, restructuring, de-fusing from, and challenging these cognitions by the therapist and the patient. With the right group of problems, patients, and therapists, the practice of CBT is well known to possess therapeutic efficacy. This chapter, however, primarily considers t…Read more
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1IntroductionIn K. W. M. Fulford, Martin Davies, Richard Gipps, George Graham, John Sadler, Giovanni Stanghellini & Tim Thornton (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy and psychiatry, Oxford University Press. 2013.This section concerns the question of how best to understand the scientific status of mental health care in general and psychiatry in particular. On the assumption that psychiatry is based, in part at least, on natural science, what is the nature or the general shape of that science? Some of the chapters aim at shedding light on component parts of a scientific world view: causation, explanation, natural kinds, models of medicine, etc. Others concern potentially fruitful scientific approaches to …Read more
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3IntroductionIn K. W. M. Fulford, Martin Davies, Richard Gipps, George Graham, John Sadler, Giovanni Stanghellini & Tim Thornton (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy and psychiatry, Oxford University Press. 2013.Following on from Section IV on summoning concepts, this section of the Handbook presents theoretically informed descriptions of psychopathologies. The topics of the chapters range from anxiety, depression, and body image disorders, through emotion and affective disorders, to delusion, thought insertion, and the fragmentation of consciousness. These phenomena call, not only for assessment and diagnosis, but also for understanding on the part of both the engaged clinician and the philosophical co…Read more
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IntroductionIn K. W. M. Fulford, Martin Davies, Richard Gipps, George Graham, John Sadler, Giovanni Stanghellini & Tim Thornton (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy and psychiatry, Oxford University Press. 2013.In this introduction to the Section II, the thrust of the component chapters is described. An important strand in the philosophy of psychiatry since its beginnings has been sociopolitical critiques: criticism which aims to improve and humanize psychiatric practice and mental health systems. From this standpoint, the introduction provides an overview of this tradition, including considerations of "postpsychiatry," value commitments in psychiatry, the recovery movement, racism and sexism in the fi…Read more
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IntroductionIn K. W. M. Fulford, Martin Davies, Richard Gipps, George Graham, John Sadler, Giovanni Stanghellini & Tim Thornton (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy and psychiatry, Oxford University Press. 2013.In the editorial introduction the stage is set for the chapters in the section by a brief discussion of the relationship between the disciplines of philosophy and psychiatry. Then each chapter briefly is summarized or highlighted.
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2IntroductionIn K. W. M. Fulford, Martin Davies, Richard Gipps, George Graham, John Sadler, Giovanni Stanghellini & Tim Thornton (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy and psychiatry, Oxford University Press. 2013.A cross-disciplinary discussion of the basis of interpersonal relating is of interest to philosophers and psychiatrists for several reasons. The development of successful clinical practice may depend, at least partly, on having an accurate understanding of the basic character of unimpaired interpersonal relating because such understanding can shed light on the nature and source of its disturbed forms. How we think about the basis of "mind-minding" competencies influences how we think about the p…Read more
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2IntroductionIn K. W. M. Fulford, Martin Davies, Richard Gipps, George Graham, John Sadler, Giovanni Stanghellini & Tim Thornton (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy and psychiatry, Oxford University Press. 2013.This Section examines several moral dilemmas and epistemological aporias in clinical practice and shows how clinicians can benefit from the introduction of philosophical methods and discourse. The authors develop these issues having in mind emblematic mental disorders and typical clinical situations. One important claim shared by the Authors is that a great effort has been made to ground psychiatry on evidence-based science, and to tie it to our growing understanding of the human brain. This is …Read more
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32Religious delusion or religious belief?Philosophical Psychology. forthcoming.How shall we distinguish religious delusion from sane religious belief? Making this determination is not usually found to be difficult in clinical practice – but what shall be our theoretical rationale? Attempts to answer this question often try to provide differentiating principles by which the religious “sheep” may be separated from the delusional “goats.” As we shall see, none of these attempts work. We may, however, ask whether the assumption underlying the search for a differentiating princ…Read more
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9Madness, Reason, and PridePhilosophy Psychiatry and Psychology 30 (4): 307-311. 2023.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Madness, Reason, and PrideRichard G.T. Gipps, PhD (bio)MadnessQuestions such as “what’s madness?” or “what’s reason?” carry no singular sense about with them wherever they go—which isn’t to say that, asked out of a particular interest in a particular context, they can’t be perfectly intelligible. Garson (2023) is wise to this when he follows “what is madness?” with “as opposed to what?”, even if this latter question itself hardly enj…Read more
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18Psychotherapy as EthicsPhilosophies 8 (2): 42. 2023.Talk of matters ethical is, in the psychotherapeutic context, typically relegated to therapy’s preconditions and setting, i.e., to its ‘frame’. What goes on within that frame, i.e., therapeutic action itself, gets theorised in psychological rather than ethical terms. An explanation for this is the frequent therapeutic imperative to extirpate self-directed moralising. Moralising, however, constitutes but a phoney pretender to the ethical life. A true ethical sensibility instead shows itself in su…Read more
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18I've got anxietyJournal of Philosophy of Education 56 (1): 124-128. 2022.Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 56, Issue 1, Page 124-128, February 2022.
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140The Oxford handbook of philosophy and psychiatry (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2013.Philosophy has much to offer psychiatry, not least regarding ethical issues, but also issues regarding the mind, identity, values, and volition. This has become only more important as we have witnessed the growth and power of the pharmaceutical industry, accompanied by developments in the neurosciences. However, too few practising psychiatrists are familiar with the literature in this area. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry offers the most comprehensive reference resource for thi…Read more
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5The Narcissism of the Private LinguistIn Maria Balaska (ed.), Cora Diamond on Ethics, Springer Verlag. pp. 223-245. 2021.Sections 243–315 of the Philosophical Investigations contain Wittgenstein’s arguments with that voice of temptation we’ve come to know as the ‘private linguist’. This chapter uses key ideas from Cora Diamond’s philosophy to offer a reading of these ‘private language’ arguments. These ideas include the difficulty of reality, our temptation to deflect from that difficulty’s recognition through evasive and illusory forms of imagination, and the value of a philosophical vision which tracks the ethic…Read more
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25The Order of DisorderPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 28 (3): 187-190. 2021.When assessing a new philosophical theory of psychopathology, a first question might be: is it descriptive or revisionary in intent? Does it aim to provide reflective understanding of what is already meant by correct uses of ‘mental disorder’? Or instead to redeploy that familiar term in articulating a new concept meeting particular desiderata? Nielsen offers us an ‘enactive conceptualization’ of mental disorder, and conceptualizations are typically understood as inventive rather than descriptiv…Read more
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28When Ego-Boundaries BreakPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 27 (1): 111-113. 2020.In her commentary, Dibitonto helpfully compares my understanding of schizophrenic ego disturbance with that of Blankenburg. His patient Anne described her true schizophrenic difficulty as obtaining in some sense 'before' those experiential disturbances she can articulate. Ordinary conversational modes misleadingly invite her and us to attempt describing her difficulties in terms which presuppose the intactness of, rather than capture the underlying disturbance to, her self-hood. They fail to loc…Read more
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51Disturbance of Ego-Boundary Enaction in SchizophreniaPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 27 (1): 91-106. 2020.Today the concept of 'schizophrenia' is often presented in psychiatric texts as a construct, a construct bringing together a diverse and, allegedly, independently assailable range of signs and symptoms. According to such a diagnostic scheme two patients may both be allowed to count as suffering from schizophrenia despite sharing hardly a single symptom. The validity of the concept has accordingly been contested by psychologists for its apparent lack of unity. In the absence of clear independent …Read more
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621Introduction: Know thyselfIn Richard G. T. Gipps & Michael Lacewing (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis, Oxford University Press. pp. 1-22. 2019.In this introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis, we provide an overview of the promise and problems of connecting philosophy and psychoanalysis through a focus on the age-old theme central to both disciplines, 'know thyself'.
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53Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2019.Psychoanalysis is often equated with Sigmund Freud, but this comparison ignores the wide range of clinical practices, observational methods, general theories, and cross-pollinations with other disciplines that characterise contemporary psychoanalytic work. Central psychoanalytic concepts to do with unconscious motivation, primitive forms of thought, defence mechanisms, and transference form a mainstay of today's richly textured contemporary clinical psychological practice. In this landmark colle…Read more
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61Psychoanalysis: Science of the Mind?Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 25 (2): 113-118. 2018.In his paper on 'The Science of Psychoanalysis,' Lacewing helpfully distinguishes a central psychodynamic model of the mind, elaborated in the clinical theory of psychoanalysis, from certain of its metapsychological and etiological theories. Critics who view psychoanalysis as unscientific have tended to focus on the lack of evidential support for certain of its developmental claims or the lack of reliability and validity in its theoretical posits. Lacewing claims, however, that the model contain…Read more
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51Dialectical Virtue and the Philosophy of PsychoanalysisPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 25 (2): 61-63. 2018.Philosophical engagements with psychoanalysis have taken several forms. Some have offered a philosophical re-vision of psychoanalytical understandings of human nature. Thus, we have Boss, Binswanger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty offering us existential-phenomenological; Ricoeur hermeneutic; Lacan structuralist; and Heaton, Elder, and Fingarette Wittgensteinian, readings of unconscious life and of therapeutic action. Such philosophical elaborations of the most apt reflective and the most fruitful re…Read more
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33The Indefinability and Unintelligibility of DelusionPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 19 (2): 91-95. 2012.
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58Depression, Sadness and AuthenticityPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 22 (4): 307-308. 2015.Hauptman’s paper tells of a Mr. A, who refused exogenous treatment for the depression he felt consequent on the end of a romantic relationship, because such treatment seems to be inauthentic and despicable. It seemed this way because the depression felt like an apt response to the loss of the beloved.Like Hauptman, I have some sympathy with Mr. A’s position. To medicate away authentic emotional reactions to the trials of living is, it seems to me, to promote a form of self-alienation and radical…Read more
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28Review of Making up the mind: how the brain creates our mental world, by Frith, C (review)Philosophical Psychology 22 (3): 393-397. 2009.
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14Making up the Mind: How the Brain Creates our Mental WorldPhilosophical Psychology 22 (3): 393-397. 2009.
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30Delusions and the Non-epistemic Foundations of BeliefPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 18 (1): 89-97. 2011.
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220Illnesses and LikenessesPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 10 (3): 255-259. 2003.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.3 (2003) 255-259 [Access article in PDF] Illnesses and Likenesses Richard G. T. Gipps IN THIS RESPONSE to Neil Pickering's paper I shall focus only on what he describes as the "strong objection" to the typical use of the likeness argument. The likeness argument, to recap, has it that we can decide whether conditions such as schizophrenia, depression, or alcoholism do or do not deserve the desig…Read more
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36Pathology of the Mind: Disorder Versus DisabilityPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 15 (4): 341-344. 2008.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Pathology of the Mind: Disorder Versus DisabilityRichard G. T. Gipps (bio)Keywordsorder, disorder, ability, disability, mental illnessAlfredo Gaete (2008) describes mental disorders as impairments in intentionality, phenomenal consciousness, and intelligence that cause harm to the affected person. I found persuasive Gaete’s claim that the concept of ‘mental disorder’ is best understood as nontheoretical and nontechnical. I also find …Read more