Comorbidity as an epistemological challenge to modern psychiatry

Psychiatric comorbidity: fact or artifact?

The frequent occurrence of comorbidity has brought about an extensive theoretical debate in psychiatry. Why are the rates of psychiatric comorbidity so high and what are their implications for the ontological and epistemological status of comorbid psychiatric diseases? Current explanations focus either on classification choices or on causal ties between disorders. Based on empirical and philoso...

[The modern psychiatric institution from an organizational perspective].

The essay analyzes the development of the modern psychiatric institution, represented most importantly by the emergence of the traditional asylum organization. In this type of institution, the process of behavioral control operates upon the same epistemological bases that fostered the bureaucratic model of domination - in other words, in the consonance with the instrumental-rational approach th...

Philosophy of clinical psychopharmacology.

The renewal of the philosophical debate in psychiatry is one exciting news of recent years. However, its use in psychopharmacology may be problematic, ranging from self-confinement into the realm of values (which leaves the evidence-based domain unchallenged) to complete rejection of scientific evidence. In this paper philosophy is conceived as a conceptual audit of clinical psychopharmacology....

The simulators: truth and power in the psychiatry of José Ingenieros.

Using Michel Foucault's lectures on "Psychiatric power" as its starting point, this article analyzes the book Simulación de la locura (The simulation of madness), published in 1903 by the Argentine psychiatrist José Ingenieros. Foucault argues that the problem of simulation permeates the entire history of modern psychiatry. After initial analysis of José Ingenieros's references to the question ...

Comorbidity of mental and physical diseases: a main challenge for medicine of the 21st century