Pathologist of the mind

As I have been reading it, I have been tweeting quotes or amended quotes from Pathologist of the mind: Adolf Meyer and the origins of American psychiatry by Susan Lamb (who I have already quoted in a previous post). I thought I would bring some of these tweets together to try and explain the importance of Adolf Meyer's work.

Susan's book (see her website) is a scholarly account that the literature has needed. Meyer himself failed to be explicit in getting across his theory of psychiatry, which was called Psychobiology (eg. see my article). Susan includes clinical material from his archives which also helps to relate his theory to his practice.

As Susan says in her conclusion, one of the key insights is that:-

DBDouble Meyer viewed mental activity and brain activity as a single biological response 24/04/2015 13:12

She goes on, "to overlook this principle is to risk misconstruing Meyer's thinking, practice, and teaching". Or, as she says in another tweet:-

DBDouble The tendency to equate the descriptor 'biological' with 'physical, bodily or somatic' can render anything Meyer said or did unintelligible 08/03/2015 20:15

The second key insight is "to appreciate the essentially medical orientation of Meyer's thinking, practice, and teaching". For Meyer:-

DBDouble Mental dysfunction, as much as brain disease, is a medical condition resulting from pathological processes 08/03/2015 17:34

This meant that:-

DBDouble Meyer framed prevalent forms of mental illness not as distinct brain diseases, as did majority of his peers, but as failed adaptation 08/03/2015 17:37

This is why I have emphasised the views of Adolf Meyer in discussions of psychiatric diagnosis on this blog (eg. see previous post). Meyer was also clear that:-

DBDouble Brain research is comparative neurology not psychiatry 08/03/2015 20:58

In other words, Meyer warned against going beyond statements about the person to wishful 'neurologising tautology' about the brain. Even though:-

DBDouble Kraepelin was part of first wave in the generational backlash against the hegemony of brain mythology in the late 19th century 26/03/2015 16:59

DBDouble Meyer lamented the Kraepelinian craze to diagnose, classify and to generate statistics 26/03/2015 17:11

Meyer took over the Huxleyan notion of science as being organised common sense. 

DBDouble Science is defined by application of rigour to observing, documenting, comparing and ordering data 08/03/2015 22:01

DBDouble Science is not defined by principles of physics or chemistry, nor by experimental techniques 08/03/2015 22:00

In summary:-

DBDouble Psychobiology provided basis to liberate psychiatry from dogma that explained mental activity in reductive, dualistic or deterministic terms 24/04/2015 13:09

To emphasise, Meyer was primarily interested in the implication of these ideas for clinical practice. 

DBDouble Meyer was no philosopher. He was a pathologist on a mission 17/03/2015 08:59

Susan also agrees with me in my spat with Nasser Ghaemi (see previous post) that:-

DBDouble The pluralism of psychobiology was neither arbitrary nor uncritical 17/03/2015 09:00