Medical humanities
June 1, 2019
Laurence J Kirmayer, Ana Gómez-carrillo
104 citations
Psychosomatic explanation in medicine, psychiatry, and psychology creates a social grey zone where conflicts about agency, causality, and moral responsibility arise, reflecting deep-seated dualism in Western concepts of personhood. Illnesses viewed as psychologically mediated tend to be seen as less real or legitimate. New forms of dualism appear in philosophical attacks on Engel's biopsychosocial approach and in the NIMH's Research Domain Criteria program, which favors exclusively biological explanations. The case of resignation syndrome among refugee children in Sweden illustrates how accounting for medically unexplained symptoms raises problems of ascribing agency.
Medical humanities
September 1, 2022
Riccardo Miceli Mcmillan
25 citations
Psychedelic compounds are regaining interest for their therapeutic effects, and their controversial nature demands bioethical guidance. This paper argues that psychedelic-using communities should be included in bioethical discussions about psychedelic medicalisation. These communities possess epistemic expertise from embodied experiences, enabling them to identify normative considerations others might overlook. They are also uniquely affected by medicalisation, so their needs must be considered. The counterargument that such communities are less capable of deliberative reasoning is acknowledged, but the author proposes that consultation is owed to undo epistemic injustice.
Medical humanities
October 19, 2020
Peter Stilwell, Christie Stilwell, Brenda Sabo et al.
23 citations
Pain is not just a brain event but emerges from interactions between a person's body, mind, and environment, according to enactive theory. This paper applies that framework to pain, critiquing dualist and reductionist approaches in medicine. The authors analyze pain-related metaphors used by clinicians in recorded appointments and interviews, classifying them and connecting them to enactive theory. Five paintings visually depict these metaphors, showing how clinical language can shape patients' pain and agency. The authors argue that clinicians often overlook how their metaphors become enacted through treatment, and suggest that intentionally shaping these metaphors could improve pain management.
Medical humanities
June 1, 2007
J Cole
2 citations
Ludwig Wittgenstein, though known as an analytical philosopher, made observations that are relevant to cognitive neuroscience, particularly regarding the inner and outer, language and sensation, and the embodied nature of emotion and communication. His insights apply to neurological conditions like pain, Capgras' Syndrome, and spinal cord injury, as well as movement sense, will, and action. Wittgenstein did not conduct empirical science but used observation and introspection to explore lived experience in ways now being approached empirically. The paper argues that his work, despite his belief that science leads philosophy into darkness, offers valuable perspectives for understanding neurological impairment.