Extraordinary Science and Psychiatry

Responses to the Crisis in Mental Health Research

Jeffrey Poland, Şerife Tekin, Jeffrey Poland, Jennifer Radden

• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9780262341769
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory
• Index: Psychology

Psychiatry and mental health research is in crisis, with tensions between psychiatry's clinical and research aims and controversies over diagnosis, treatment, and scientific constructs for studying mental disorders. At the center of these controversies is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which—especially after the publication of DSM-5—many have found seriously flawed as a guide for research. This book addresses the crisis and the associated "extraordinary science" (Thomas Kuhn's term for scientific research during a state of crisis) from the perspective of philosophy of science. The goal is to help reconcile the competing claims of science and phenomenology within psychiatry and to offer new insights for the philosophy of science.

The contributors discuss the epistemological origins of the current crisis, the nature of evidence in psychiatric research, and the National Institute for Mental Health's Research Domain Criteria project. They consider particular research practices in psychiatry—computational, personalized, mechanistic, and user-led—and the specific categories of schizophrenia, depressive disorder, and bipolar disorder. Finally, they examine the DSM's dubious practice of pathologizing normality.

Contributors
Richard P. Bentall, John Bickle, Robyn Bluhm, Rachel Cooper, Kelso Cratsley, Owen Flanagan, Michael Frank, George Graham, Ginger A. Hoffman, Harold Kincaid, Aaron Kostko, Edouard Machery, Jeffrey Poland, Claire Pouncey, ?erife Tekin, Peter Zachar

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction: Psychiatric Research and Extraordinary Science
• 2 Kinds or Tails?
• 3 Evidence-Based Medicine, Biological Psychiatry, and the Role of Science in Medicine
• 4 RDoC’s Metaphysical Assumptions: Problems and Promises
• 5 Psychopathology without Nosology: The Research Domain Criteria Project as Normal Science
• 6 The Promise of Computational Psychiatry
• 7 Personalized Psychiatry and Scientific Causal Explanations: Two Accounts
• 8 The Shift to Mechanistic Explanation and Classification
• 9 Classification, Rating Scales, and Promoting User-Led Research
• 10 Six Myths about Schizophrenia: A Paradigm Well Beyond Its Use-By Date?
• 11 Looking for the Self in Psychiatry: Perils and Promises of Phenomenology–Neuroscience Partnership in Schizophrenia Research
• 12 DSM Applications to Young Children: Are There Really Bipolar and Depressed Two-Year-Olds?
• 13 Truth and Sanity: Positive Illusions, Spiritual Delusions, and Metaphysical Hallucinations
• Contributors
• Index