Delusions in Context
In Delusions in Context, I gather four new original articles on clinical delusions by experts in different disciplines, Rachel Upthegrove (Birmingham) with S.A., Philip Corlett (Yale), Richard Bentall (Sheffield), and myself, Lisa Bortolotti (Birmingham).
The chapters cover different contexts in which we can situate delusions to better understand the phenomenon: clinical and lived experience, cognitive neuropsychology and psychiatry, psychology, and philosophy. The general message is that there is continuity between delusions and everyday beliefs.The book is open access so you can download it for free. This was made possible by the generous support of project PERFECT.
The chapters cover different contexts in which we can situate delusions to better understand the phenomenon: clinical and lived experience, cognitive neuropsychology and psychiatry, psychology, and philosophy. The general message is that there is continuity between delusions and everyday beliefs.The book is open access so you can download it for free. This was made possible by the generous support of project PERFECT.
Reviews:
- Aline Maya for Metapsychology Online (2018). "Truly, the ground-breaking arguments in this book might promote a new approach to patients’ treatment in the future"; "I found remarkable the compassionate and humanistic approach in this book because patients with delusions are frequently depicted in media as violent and irrational, and the truth is that, behind every delusion there is a rational person that is fighting with her own mind, and in need of professional help and understanding."
- Amazon.com, Karl V. (2020). "I thought this book was extremely helpful for understanding current perspectives on the tricky subject of delusion. Not all weird thinking is delusional, and not all delusional thinking is necessarily pathological. Delusional thinking may be more widespread than we would like to believe. This book gave me incredibly helpful insights and a vocabulary for discussion this phenomenon with medical professionals. I strongly encourage anyone in a similar situation to get this excellent book. It gave me a lot of hope, and the patience to engage with my son constructively rather than judgmentally".
Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience: Philosophical Perspectives
Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience: Philosophical Perspectives (International Perspectives in Philosophy & Psychiatry) was co-edited by Matthew R. Broome and myself and published by Oxford University Press in May 2009.
It was listed among the Guardian Books of the Year in 2009.
It is a collection of papers which addresses the status of psychiatry as a science. Contributors include leading experts in philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, psychiatry, psychology, cognitive neuroscience, phenomenology, ethics and moral psychology.
Some of the issues addressed are whether explanation in psychiatry can be tackled satisfactorily by neuroscientific investigation, and whether an interdisciplinary approach is necessary to gain a full understanding of a variety of psychiatric conditions (e.g. addiction, depression, delusions, anosognosia, obsessive thoughts, personality disorders).
Some of the issues addressed are whether explanation in psychiatry can be tackled satisfactorily by neuroscientific investigation, and whether an interdisciplinary approach is necessary to gain a full understanding of a variety of psychiatric conditions (e.g. addiction, depression, delusions, anosognosia, obsessive thoughts, personality disorders).
- M Warnock for The Observer (2009): "It is a collection of very varied essays on subjects such as the nature of mental illness, whether psychiatry is a science, and why so-called personality disorder can't be treated, all matters of great interest in themselves, but also of relevance to criminal law and sentencing policy. Despite its title, it is a gripping read."
- DS Stoyanov for Metapsychology Online (2009): "From my perspective this is the decisive contribution of Matthew Broome and Lisa Bortolotti to the debate in philosophy of science and psychiatry: their focus on the supreme importance of coherent dialogue at the intersection of the disciplines focusing on mental health and disorder."
- MJ Schrift, Occupational Medicine 59 (2009): "Written and edited by a group of internationally recognized researchers on the cognitive neuroscience of psychopathology, this book is an outstanding summary of the contemporary issues in the study of mind, brain, and phenomenology. [...] It is an essential reading for those involved in the understanding of mind and brain."
- P Zachar for Psychological Medicine (2010): "Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience is a collection of consistently high quality chapters addressing a variety of conceptual issues regarding the role that the cognitive neurosciences can play in psychiatry. Best described as a work of interdisciplinary philosophy, the book has a broader appeal than it would were it primarily an attempt to construe scientific psychiatry as a type of cognitive neuroscience."
- A Cavanna, S Shah and H Rickards for Cognitive Neuropsychiatry (2010): "Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience: Philosophical Perspectives, edited by Matthew R. Broome and Lisa Bortolotti, two of the most talented thinkers in the fields of theoretical psychiatry and philosophy of cognitive science, is an absorbing and thorough philosophical analysis of how psychopathology is studied in psychiatry and psychology through the paradigms of cognitive neuroscience and cognitive neuropsychiatry. This multi-authored book beautifully covers a wide range of topics, including the nature of psychiatry as a science, the nature of mental illness, the reconciliation of neuroscience with clinical psychiatry, and moral responsibility in conditions such as dissociative disorders."
- J Callender for British Journal of Psychiatry (2010): "Matthew Broome and Lisa Bortolotti have assembled a stellar cast of contributors to this volume. They bring together philosophy and neuroscience in an attempt to give an account of psychopathology that is more detailed and penetrating than the standard descriptions and definitions. The quality of the writing and analysis is uniformly excellent without becoming inaccessible to a clinical readership. The combination of rigorous conceptual analysis and neuroscience will take psychiatry in new directions in future years. This book offers an important route map to that future."
- M Marraffa for Philosophical Psychology (2012): "Psychiatry as cognitive neuroscience is well worth reading for anyone interested in psychiatry and its philosophy. Some of its papers are empirically informed philosophy at its best; and they make an important step forward towards a psychiatry more free of the antinomies that have haunted it since its inception."
Philosophy and Happiness
A translation in Arabic is available: PHILOSOPHY AND HAPPINESS الفلسفة والسعادة, translated by Ahmed Al-Ansari and published by al-Markaz al-Qawmī lil-Tarjamah/ The National Center for Translation, Cairo (Egypt), 2013 (ISBN 9789777180672).
Philosophy and Happiness is a collection of philosophical papers by eminent and emerging scholars who answer pressing questions about happiness and the good life. Can we measure happiness? Would immortality enhance or compromise happiness? Does a happy life need to be meaningful? Can one be happy in adverse conditions (illness, disability, suffering)?
Reviews:
- From CHOICE: "[A] solid addition to happiness studies, especially for its outreach to interdisciplinary avenues."
- The Meaning of Life entry, Oxford Bibliographies Online: "A collection of fresh papers meant to provide a kaleidoscopic view of happiness. Many of the texts explicitly address meaning in life, and many others do this implicitly in contexts such as worthwhileness, authenticity, wisdom, and objective accounts of the human good."
- Nicholas Waghorn, Metapsychology Online (2010): "The inaugural offering is a helpful essay by Thaddeus Metz, well-chosen as an opener, which seeks to clarify some of the ideas in play. Metz first wants to show that happiness and meaningfulness are conceptually distinct (i.e. a happy but meaningless life is not a contradiction), and also that they are substantively different (i.e. they come apart in reality) [...] John Cottingham's characteristically humane and sensitive contribution seeks to delineate the ways in which past and future, and the awareness of these, bleed in to our present happiness, and inform our understanding of it.[...] Muireann Quigley and John Harris deal with a seemingly theological topic in a secular fashion -- that of immortality, and its relationship to happiness. Their concern is to defend the ostensibly secular scientific goal of extending lifespan through biological means.[...] Jordi Fernández' contribution relates happiness to incommensurable choices, where the goals cannot be compared -- in Sartre's famous example, the young Frenchman who has to decide between joining the Resistance and staying at home to look after his ailing mother."
- Alicia Hall, International Journal of Wellbeing (2011): "Philosophy and Happiness, an impressive volume edited by Lisa Bortolotti, provides an excellent illustration of how the analysis of happiness requires clear thought about both the relevant questions and their potential solutions. This book, which grew out of the conference Happiness and the Meaning of Life, held at the University of Birmingham in 2007, offers a fresh perspective on a number of classic questions about happiness and also points the way toward new avenues of research."