‘‘The perfection of a science is shown in the perfection of its language,’’ Condillac said in 1746. A concept that is gaining in popularity and cropping up in scientific articles with increasing regularity is ‘‘compulsivity.’’ Off the cuff, the word ‘‘compulsive’’ makes us think of something that is controlled, repeated, inexorable, repetitive, imperative, stereotyped, and necessary—something y...

Assessing when a patient problem or symptom elevates to the severity required to diagnose a psychiatric condition can be a difficult task, particularly for inexperienced practitioners. The “Four D’s” consisting of deviance, dysfunction, distress, and danger can be a valuable tool to all practitioners when assessing reported traits, symptoms, or conditions in order to illuminate the point of at ...

The discourse of posthumanism considers the body a site of negotiation between the material and the transcendent, and medievalists have noted the resemblance between this posthuman body-as-nexus and the medieval notion of the body of Christ as a material pathway to transcendence. The physical incarnation of Christ, in elevating the standing of humanity through a synecdochic association between ...