This thesis explores the phenomenon of mind-brain dualism in contemporary Western psychiatry from an anthropological and social psychological perspective. In a first chapter, it reports on an empirical study involving 127 staff psychiatrists and psychologists at McGill University who responded to a questionnaire based on clinical vignettes. Results revealed a latent process of judging patients' responsibility for illness, where the more a behavioural problem was seen as 'psychological,' the more the patients tended to be viewed as responsible and blameworthy for their symptoms, while behaviours with 'neurobiological' causes showed the opposite tendency. A second chapter reviews the history of psychosomatic medicine and argues that specific biomedical and psychological sick roles exist for patients that determine the ways in which their actions are judged, as well as how the functions of the rational mind are commonly understood. Insights from evolutionary psychology are used in a third chapter to speculate on new models of mental illness that may provide new contexts for negotiating mind-brain dualism and judgements of responsibility.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.97970 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Miresco, Marc J. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Psychiatry.) |
| Rights | © Marc J. Miresco, 2006 |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002330649, proquestno: AAIMR24744, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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