Derek Bolton – författare

Philosophical ideas about the mind, brain, and behaviour can seem theoretical and unimportant when placed alongside the urgent questions of mental distress and disorder. However, there is a need to give direction to attempts to answer these questions. On the one hand a substantial research effort is going into the investigation of brain processes and the development of drug treatments for psychiatric disorders, and on the other, a wide range of psychotherapies is becoming available to adults and children with mental health problems. These two strands reflect traditional distinctions between mind and body, and causal as opposed to meaningful explanations of behaviour. In this book, which has been written for psychiatrists, psychologists, philosophers, and others in related fields, the authors propose a radical re-interpretation of these traditional distinctions. Throughout the discussions philosophical theories are brought to bear on the particular questions of the explanation of behaviours, the nature of mental causation, and eventually the origins of major disorders including depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, and personality disorder.First published in 1996, this volume played an important role in bridging the gap between philosophy and psychiatry, and introducing those in psychiatry to philosophical ideas somewhat neglected in their field. Completely updated, the new edition of this acclaimed volume draws on the strengths of the first edition, and will be a central text in the burgeoning field of philosophy of psychiatry.

The effects of mental disorder are apparent and pervasive, in suffering, loss of freedom and life opportunities, negative impacts on education, work satisfaction and productivity, complications in law, institutions of healthcare, and more. With new editions of the 'bibles' of psychiatric diagnosis - the ICD and DSM - under development, it is timely to take a step back and re-evaluate exactly how we diagnose and define mental disorder.This new book by Derek Bolton tackles the problems involved in the definition and boundaries of mental disorder. These problems are evident now in many contexts: in the diagnostic manuals themselves, in epidemiological estimates of prevalence, in distinguishing normal sadness from depressive illness, for example, or childhood temperamental traits from developmental psychopathology, and in mental health legislation and criminal law. In many ways these problems are contemporary expressions of those identified in the heated debates surrounding psychiatry in the 1960s and 1970s: does psychiatry pathologize what is really normal life suffering? Is mental illness really social deviance, not a proper domain of medicine? Is psychiatry really a form of social control?However, these original problems have been transformed by crucial developments over the past few decades, and the book seeks to update the position taking them into account. The last few decades have seen the closing of the asylums and the appearance of care in the community: mental disorder is now in our midst, intensifying the problems of the '60s and '70s. Attempts have been made to define clearly a concept of mental disorder that is truly medical as opposed to social, inevitably relying on the distinction between human nature and culture. In the science, there is increasing evidence that this distinction is unviable, and accumulating evidence that there is no clear line between what is normal in the population and what is abnormal. What is Mental Disorder? reviews these various crucial developments and their profound impact for the concept and its boundaries in a provocative and timely book.

A serious illness often changes the way others see us. Few, if any, relationships remain the same. The sick become more dependent on partners and family members, while more distant contacts become strained. The carers of the ill are also often isolated. This book focuses on our sense of self when ill and how infirmity plays out in our relationships with others.Neil Vickers and Derek Bolton offer an original perspective, drawing on neuroscience, psychology and psychoanalysis, as well as memoirs of the ill or their carers, to reveal how a sense of connectedness and group belonging can not only improve care, but make societies more resilient to illness. This is an essential book on the experience of major illness.