A Metaphysics of Psychopathology by Peter Zachar My name is Peter Zachar and I am a Professor in the Psychology Department at Auburn University Montgomery in the U.S. I have spent two decades writing about the philosophy of psychiatry, particularly in the area of psychiatric classification. About four years ago I decided it was time to systematize what I have learned in a book – which has recently been published by the MIT Press with the title A Metaphysics of Psychopathology . There is an ongoing tension between belief in the reality of psychiatric disorders versus the metaphysical skepticism of social constructionism and the anti-psychiatry movement. Within the mental health professions themselves, people have differing views about how much reality to attribute to conditions such as schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder. For instance, some professionals consider schizophrenic psychosis to be real, others consider it to be a reified diagnostic category....
A blog at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, and mental health