tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18614557.post4318102461751368357..comments2024-03-28T22:29:05.434+00:00Comments on Relational psychiatry: Understanding the biopsychosocial modelDBDoublehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16140020984190294123noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18614557.post-33506474667136108422021-02-23T09:43:10.903+00:002021-02-23T09:43:10.903+00:00Thanks Duncan. Now I understand better I'm wit...Thanks Duncan. Now I understand better I'm with you on all of this. The 2020/11 blog post does indeed make it clearer. Richard Gippshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18001492312162861823noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18614557.post-76968670187281967512021-02-22T08:45:49.722+00:002021-02-22T08:45:49.722+00:00Thanks, Richard. Third person is 'it' as w...Thanks, Richard. Third person is 'it' as well as 's/he'. Thanks for your clarification. What I'm pointing to what Martin Buber called the attitudes of I-Thou and I-it. <br /><br />I also agree that illness is an experience. Thanks again for your clarification. Of course this was what Engel was emphasising. Mental illness is of course mediated by the brain. But that does not mean that there is a biological abnormality in the brain. I agree a lot of people find this position difficult to accept.<br /><br />I think my best post that describes what Engel actually said is http://criticalpsychiatry.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-need-for-new-medical-model.html. Rebecca Roache has actually read what he wrote but to my mind does not go far enough in describing its implications. I'm sure I'm not expressing myself very well, but I'm not sure how to make my position clearer. Perhaps the blog posts need to be brought together into a published article.DBDoublehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16140020984190294123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18614557.post-41119498768168976282021-02-21T11:30:33.681+00:002021-02-21T11:30:33.681+00:00Hi Duncan. I found much to agree with here.
Yet ...Hi Duncan. I found much to agree with here. <br /><br />Yet I didn't grasp why you say that "third person narratives attempt explanation in terms of brain processes". "Third person" is typically 's/he' rather than 'I' or 'you' or 'they'. We say 'She is going to the shops', 'he is getting on my nerves', etc., and in this way deploy a fully personalistic idiom.<br /><br />Also, I'm not yet sure I'm with you on the sense in which mental, as opposed to ordinary, illness requires the application of psychosocial concepts. You suggest that this is because mental illness is 'contingent on the person having certain sorts of subjective experience'. So, it seems to me that both ordinary and mental illness essentially involve subjective experience: discomfort, pain, distress, angst, etc. Ordinary illness is, after all, not the same as mere disease (which can be ascribed to someone independently of their subjective experience). Perhaps, though, you mean that genuine mental illness is that which must not only be described, but also *accounted for*, by reference to psychosocial matters? If so then I think I agree with you; I would just say, though, that those who have tried to move the concept of mental illness away from the psychosocial context - so that it could in theory arise not only from reactions to life experience, but simply endogenously, would not agree. <br /><br />Looking through some of your blog posts I find various accounts of what Engel's biopsychosocial model isn't. Is there one which you could point to, or another text online, which tells us more about what it is?Richard Gippshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18001492312162861823noreply@blogger.com