A lively exploration of mind and brain, conscious and unconscious,
patient and client.
In this companion volume to their widely acclaimed Perspectives of
Psychiatry, Phillip R. Slavney, M.D., and Paul R. McHugh, M.D., argue
that the discontinuity of brain and mind is the source of much of
psychiatry's discord, for it leads psychiatrists to think about their
discipline in terms of polar opposites: conscious or unconscious;
explanation or understanding; paternalism or autonomy. Psychiatric
Polarities brings together the history of ideas and such clinical
issues as suicide and bipolar disorder to identify, describe, and debate
these and other polar oppositions that arise from psychiatry's inherent
ambiguity.
There is no single conceptual perspective that is sufficient for all of
psychiatry's concerns, Slavney and McHugh observe, yet it is both
possible and necessary to transcend the denominational conflicts that
plague the field. In Psychiatric Polarities, their examination of
these conflicts demonstrates how a methodological approach can help to
resolve disagreements rooted in partisan commitments.