Psychiatrie in 3-D

Philosoph

Modellen van ‘integratie’ in de psychologie en psychiatrie (III): de filosofie van wetenschap en praktijk.

This is the last of three articles on the relationship between science, religion, and professional practice in psychology and psychiatry. The first article highlighted the importance of the distinction between four types of knowledge. In the second article the scope was broadened and amounted to an analysis of the normative structure of professional practices. I showed the relevance of this analysis by investigating its meaning for the notion of restoration, along the dimensions of structure and direction. The I-self relationship played an important role in the conceptualization of the relationship between these two dimensions. In this article I will apply the notion of (normative) practice to science andphilosophy. After a discussion of the views on integration of Nancey Murphy and Ian Barbour (both Christian philosophers) I will briefly introduce some insights of the Dutch (Christian) philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd, who emphasized the primacy of everyday knowledge and experience. In the latter part of the article I will discuss and reject constructivist objections to both the idea of the primacy of everyday knowledge and the normative practice model

Modellen van ‘integratie’ in de psychologie en psychiatrie (II): het normatieve praktijkmodel.

This is the second of three articles on the relationship between science, religion and professional practice in psychology and psychiatry. The first article pointed out that the weakness of the integration debate consists of lack of awareness of the epistemological distinction between everyday knowledge, professional knowledge, scientific knowledge and philosophical assumptions. This article shows how the integration debate gains new impetus by relating knowledge to practices and by investigating the intrinsic normative nature of professional practices. In the first part of the article I will analyze the structure of professional practices (psychiatry; psychotherapy), in order to gain insight into the role of norms and values in these practices. In the second part I show how the notion of integration can be elaborated upon along the dimensions of structure (levels; functions) and direction (opening-up; disclosure). It appears that the I-self relationship plays a crucial role in the conceptualization of the relation between these two dimensions

Conceptual issues in neuroscientific research on empathy

This paper gives an analysis of some conceptual issues in the neuroscientific study of empathy. The focus will almost exclusively be on a seminal paper by Decety and Jackson (2004) on the functional architecture of empathy. The authors withstand reductionistic tendencies in the exposition of what their findings might mean for the psychology of social cognition. They are aware of the thorny conceptual issues that arise when attempting to bridge intuitive folk psychological conceptions of empathy with explanations offered by social psychology, developmental science, and, most of all, neuroscience. They defend a conception which puts emphasis on the developmental, interactional and human aspects of empathy. In the second part of the paper we will see that this overt contention is at some points at odds with the conceptual framework that underlies the presentation of scientific findings. It will appear that the method of decomposition, i.e., breaking empathy down into (mutually interacting) ‘pieces’, is difficult to reconcile with the idea that empathy should primarily be defined as an interactional phenomenon. The method of decomposition puts empathy back within the brain, whereas recent philosophical work argues that empathy needs a definition which includes both processes in the empathizing subject and in the person with whom the subject empathizes. In the final part of the paper it is asked whether, how and to what extent it does matter that professionals know about the social neuroscience of empathy and, especially, its underlying conceptual framework. It is argued that conceptual innovations that currently are emerging in social neuroscience do matter for clinical and legal practices. In spite of the limitations mentioned earlier, Decety & Jackson's developmental and interactional approach helps to overcome reductionistic and mentalistic interpretations of human empathy

Person, personality, self, and identity

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