Psychiatry as a human science : : phenomenological, hermeneutical and Lacanian perspectives / / Antoine Mooij; translation Peter van Nieuwkoop.

• Author: Mooij, Antoine, 1944-
• TeilnehmendeR: Nieuwkoop, Peter van.
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Language: English
• Series: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies 18.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (295 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

Psychiatry or psychopathology finds itself in a state of imbalance. The reason: the impossibility to unite biological and psychological factors. Effectively, this leads to the psychic reality being largely ignored. And yet psychiatry as a human science will have to acknowledge the psychic reality: the human capacity to symbolise reality. This book demonstrates that phenomenology, hermeneutics and Lacanian psychoanalysis support this view, whilst also drawing on Cassirer’s theory of symbolization. In the domain of psychopathology, this convergence and the conceptual space it brings offer an opportunity to create cross-fertilisation, enlarging the Lacanian clinical perspective. It will result in a philosophical conception of man as animal symbolicum , an animal fallen prey to language. In sum, the book renders a contribution to Lacanian psychopathology, to the philosophy of psychiatry and to philosophical anthropology. It is of interest to psychiatrists, psychologists, psychoanalysts and philosophers alike.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- The Medical Discourse: The Exclusion of Psychic Reality -- The History of Hermeneutical Psychiatry -- The Relationship between the Psychic and Physical Reality -- Empiricism in Psychiatry -- Three Forms of Hermeneutics -- Psychic Reality and the Symbolic Function in Triplicate -- Three Psychopathological Structures and Nine Subject Positions -- The Interpretation of a Life History -- Epilogue -- Table Outlining Psychopathological Structures -- Bibliography -- Name Index -- Subject Index.