Psychiatry and Human Nature : Classic and Romantic Perspectives

The book is aimed at an interdisciplinary audience interested in psychiatry. It explores areas central to human nature such as the experience of mental illness and the basis of mental capacity. Throughout, it relates these concepts to a dualistic structure of 'classic' and 'romantic' perspectives.

Psychiatry is medicine''s most multi-disciplinary specialty and arguably its most intellectually and emotionally demanding. It has long attracted dual interpretations from cool, detached perspectives valuing objectivity (classic) to hotter, embodied and more political perspectives valuing subjectivity (romantic). This book argues that psychiatry should become more aware of classic and romantic threads that run through it. Chapters approach core topics in psychiatry and throughout the book both research and case material are used to animate the concepts. The book relates psychiatry to questions in philosophical anthropology and ethics. It presents human nature, mental disorder, and human freedom as inherently inter-related. This is a book of broad appeal to anyone interested in psychiatry and why this branch of medicine has ethical, legal and political significance.