Manfred Spitzer – författare

Philosophy and psychopathology have more in common than philosophers, psychiatrists and clinical psychologists might think. Three fields of inquiry come to mind: (1) Questions about the scientific status of psychopatho­ logical statements and claims, (2) ethical questions, and (3) problems regarding the question of how to account for something like a disordered mind. While the first two domains have frequently been addressed in articles and debates (think of the mind-body problem and the problem of institutionalization versus self-determination as examples of issues in the two fields), the question of how the mind should be conceived in order for psychopathology to work best has seldom been discussed. The present volume focuses on this question. Perception, thought, affect, will, and the like are terms which made their way from philosophy into psychology, and into present psychiatry, where disturbances of these "faculties" or "functions" are believed to form the most basic part of symptomatology. While these terms and many others that are used to refer to symptoms of mental disorder (such as "self', "consciousness", "drive", and "identity") may seem to be purely descriptive and theoretically "innocent", they are packed with implicit assumptions, theoretical concepts, and sometimes dogmatic postulates.

Phenomenology represents a mainstream in the philosophy of subjectivity as well as a rich tradition of inquiry in psychiatry. The conceptual and empirical study of language has become increasingly relevant for psychiatric research and practice. Schizophrenia is still the most enigmatic and most relevant mental disorder. This volume represents an attempt to bring specialists from different fields together in order to integrate various conceptual and empirical approaches for the benefit of schizophrenic research. We hope that it will facilitate discussions among members of such diverse fields as psychiatry, psychology, and philosophy.

"Psychopathology should make clear what we know, how we know, and what we do not know. " "ffYoU thinkyou could eliminate philosophy, and regard it as something irrele­ vant it will overwhelm you in some obscure tDsguise. This is the point where that bulk of bad philosophy in psychopathological studies originates. " KARL JASPERS Since the publication of KARL JASPERS' General Psychopathology in 1913 at least, it has become obvious that a psychopathologist cannot do without philosophical reflection. If he wants to say anything about disorders of perception and thought, or of the experiencing I, to name the subjects of this book, he must know those disorders and the problems related to them. The phenomena and problems in question are not at all simply empirical (which is to say that they concern the structure and function of the organs of sense or the central nervous system), but conceptual. We have already formed some notions and prejudices concerning those subjects - perception, e. g. , is considered to be "a projection from the outside into the inward", thinking "a kind of inward talk", the I refers to "reflec­ ting upon me by myself', etc. Unless we think about these ideas critically, we shall fail in describing disorders of experience, thought, and action.

Anhand der Literatur werden in dem vorliegenden Buch die Positionen der drei für das Wahnproblem wahrscheinlich einflußreichsten Denker - Karl Jaspers, Kurt Schneider und Sigmund Freud - eingehend und kritisch diskutiert. Außerdem werden die transkulturelle Psychiatrie des Wahns und Modelle der Ätiopathogenese systematisch dargestellt. Für das Problem einer mit klinischen Belangen konsistenten Wahndefinition wird in einem eigenen Ansatz eine Lösung versucht, woran sich Überlegungen zur Bedeutung der Rede von der "anderen Welt" des Wahnkranken anschließen. Das Buch gibt sowohl dem mit der Materie "Wahn" noch nicht Vertrauten einen ersten Überblick über die komplexe Problematik, ist jedoch ebenso für den Fachmann aufgrund seiner in weiten Teilen neuen Sicht der Dinge von Interesse. Das Buch soll helfen, die Diskussion erneut zu beleben, und damit auch klinisch "eingefahrene" Denkschablonen durch kritische Reflexion ersetzen helfen.