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). Professor Owen argues that psychiatry should become more aware of classic and romantic threads that run through it. He approaches core topics in psychiatry and throughout the book both research and case material are used to animate the concepts. The author relates psychiatry to questions in philosophical anthropology and ethics. He 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.

‘In Psychiatry and Human Nature, Owen elegantly teases out alternative world views in psychiatry and mental health through the lens of the alternative classical and romantic traditions. Erudite, yet readable, it provides a refreshingly original take on the many controversies in how we conceptualise and respond to mental disorders.’

Matthew Hotopf - CBE FRCPsych FMedSci, Executive Dean, Institute of Psychiatry Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London

‘This is a serious book. Professor Gareth Owen has written a compelling and masterly account of the interrelationship of mental disorder, human nature, and human freedom. He takes a detailed, logical and comprehensive stance towards his subject. He is thoughtful, knowledgeable, and if I might say so, erudite. He examines his subject through classic and romantic perspectives. His elucidation of phenomenology, its place and role in psychiatry, its contributions to descriptive psychopathology, and through this, its influence on classification of psychiatric disorders was thorough and enviable. Professor Owen’s book is rich and enriching. It shows his absolute mastery of his subject and his total command of his field. It is a book that I will return to, again and again, because he has mined a deep and abundant seam.’

Femi Oyebode - Professor of Psychiatry, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham

‘Gareth Owen has written a fascinating history of psychiatry. At once erudite and personally immediate, the book covers both the science and art of psychiatry - and the need for both in case formulation. The work is underpinned with a profound understanding of philosophical discussions about human nature and the historic tensions between philosophy and psychiatry. Case studies, informed by Owen's clinical practice, are frequent and helpful pointers to the urgency of such issues in the lives of ordinary people. Richly interdisciplinary - there is a lovely chapter that uses fine art to elucidate one of the central themes: the difference between 'understanding' and 'explanation' in psychiatric terms - the book reminds us that human nature evolves with us, that we are never entirely 'rational' or 'emotional', never entirely 'classical' or 'romantic' and that even cutting-edge science must accommodate this.’

Carl Gombrich - Dean, The London Interdisciplinary School, London

‘Professor Owen has pulled off a remarkable feat. He has constructed a major intellectual work that springs from some old traditions yet speaks to our modern times. It is a book about psychiatry yet is neither conventional textbook nor fashionable critique. The book is a guide on how to bring out what’s useful and true about many different perspectives and a way of integrating them, of balancing them. At the end we will certainly understand more about what psychiatry is trying to do but more than that, we will have a fuller and deeper picture of what it means to be human. In an age of polarisation and blinkeredness in our discourse about what really matters in life, Psychiatry and Human Nature, is not only welcome but urgently needed.’

Anthony S. David - Division of Psychiatry. University College London

‘Rich, erudite and thoughtful. Owen makes a compelling case for the necessity of engaging with human nature in all its complexity and ambiguity for both our understandings of psychiatry and of legal responses to mental illness/impaired capacity. The longitudinal perspective and the four-fold division into classic/romantic/right/left offers a new and helpful framing of the evolution of psychiatry and law. While this is not a book about the reform of mental health or capacity law, it provides those who advocate for such reform (from any perspective) with a valuable reminder of the importance of open debate and epistemic humility.’

Mary Donnelly - Law School, University College Cork, Ireland

‘Psychiatry and Human Nature is a tour de force; it is a comprehensive, fresh, rich, and highly accessible treatment of the epistemology, methodology, and ethics of psychiatry, including its history in Europe, the UK, and the US since the 19th century, and contemporary political-legal controversies over patient freedom of decision-making in health care. There is no better introduction than Part II, to the contemporary conversation in policy, law, and the interested public about freedom, authority, and the doctor-patient relationship, a conversation in which Owen has played a leading role. From theoretical, historical, and methodological analysis, Owen derives one concrete recommendation after another, for clinical practice, research, and discussions of policy. It is difficult to do justice to this book in any short summary. It is a landmark, and should be required reading in the training of every psychiatrist, whether clinician or researcher.’

Sherrilyn Roush - Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Los Angeles

‘Today, it takes a lot of courage to talk about human nature rather than about oppressed identities. Gareth Owen’s new book is a welcome and deeply humanistic contribution to psychiatry. The book is extremely well written engaging and highly informative. The reader is exposed not only to the most relevant psychiatric viewpoints but also to enriching references to philosophy and literary sources. In sum, this is a highly welcome attempt of conveying a deep humanism in psychiatry, which is specially needed in our time of widespread and rampant reification of human being.’

Josef Parnas - M. D., Dr Med Sci., Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

‘Gareth Owen has given us a book that makes the reader think. Usually, we don’t think; we just do. We think about diagnosis and theories in psychiatry, mental states, and freedom and restrictions of freedom in psychiatry. Psychiatrists, mental health clinicians, and the general public has beliefs about mental illness and theories about mental health. But we don’t think about those beliefs and theories; we just have them. Dr. Owen invites us to think with him, and in the process, learn much that we didn’t know, and to unlearn assumptions and even falsehoods we believed. Owen is in a small but golden tradition of thinkers in psychiatry, from Karl Jaspers a century ago onwards. Let us read, and think, with him, and grow wiser about ourselves.’

Nassir Ghaemi - M. D., Director, Mood Disorders Program, Tufts Medical Center; Professor of Psychiatry, Tufts University School of Medicine; Lecturer on Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School