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Mental Illness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2022

Tim Thornton
Affiliation:
University of Central Lancashire, Preston

Summary

The very idea of mental illness is contested. Given its differences from physical illnesses, is it right to count it, and particular mental illnesses, as genuinely medical as opposed to moral matters? One debate concerns its value-ladenness, which has been used by anti-psychiatrists to argue that it does not exist. Recent attempts to define mental illness divide both on the presence of values and on their consequences. Philosophers and psychiatrists have explored the nature of the general kinds that mental illnesses might comprise, influenced by psychiatric taxonomies such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and the International Classification of Diseases, and the rise of a rival biological 'meta-taxonomy': the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC). The assumption that the concept of mental illness has a culturally invariant core has also been questioned. This Element serves as a guide to these contested debates.
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Online ISBN: 9781108939836
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 02 June 2022

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References

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Mental Illness
  • Tim Thornton, University of Central Lancashire, Preston
  • Online ISBN: 9781108939836
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Mental Illness
  • Tim Thornton, University of Central Lancashire, Preston
  • Online ISBN: 9781108939836
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Mental Illness
  • Tim Thornton, University of Central Lancashire, Preston
  • Online ISBN: 9781108939836
Available formats
×