One Century of Karl Jaspers' General Psychopathology

ABOUT THIS BOOK

• Describes the basic methods of the clinical encounter, thus helping readers to understand their patients and to be aware of the limitations of understanding
• Valid definitions of fundamental mental abnormal phenomena, such as delusions, self-disorders, psychosis, help readers perform a fine-grained and in-depth assessment of their patients
• Delineates the historical and philosophical background of mental health practices creating an awareness of the roots of psychiatry
• Provides an in-depth understanding of what psychopathology is about and the necessary background for present day diagnostic manuals

2013 sees the centenary of Jaspers' foundation of psychopathology as a science in its own right.

In 1913 Karl Jaspers published his psychiatric opus magnum - the Allgemeine Psychopathologie (General Psychopathology). Jaspers was working at a time much like our own - with rapid expansion in the neurosciences, and responding to the philosophical challenges that this raised. The idea inspiring his book was very simple: to bring order into the chaos of abnormal psychic phenomena by rigorous description, definition and classification, and to empower psychiatry with a valid and reliable method to assess and make sense of abnormal human subjectivity.

After almost one century, many of the concepts challenged by Jaspers are still at issue, and Jaspers' investigation is even now the ground for analyses and discussions. With a new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) imminent, many of the issues concerning methodology and diagnosis are still the subject of much discussion and debate. This volume brings together leading psychiatrists and philosophers to discuss and evaluate the impact of this volume, its relevance today, and the legacy it left.

"Jaspers' General Psychopathology is not an easy text to read. Especially nowadays, in the Internet era, it may appear in several parts obscure, convoluted, or repetitive. This is why the present volume has the potential to be not only attractive to scholars, but also extremely useful for young psychiatrists and busy clinicians. It may represent for them a 'guide' to the reading of that ponderous text, helping them to extract the key messages that are likely to resonate with, and at the same time enrich, their clinical practice and theoretical reflection." - From the Introduction by Mario Maj
Readership: Psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, and philosophers.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Giovanni Stanghellini and Thomas Fuchs: Editors' Introduction
Mario Maj: Foreword: The Relevance of Karl Jaspers' General Psychopathology to Current Psychiatric Debate
K. W. M. (Bill) Fulford: Foreword: Particular Psychopathologies - Lessons from Karl Jaspers' General Psychopathology for the new philosophy of psychiatry
Acknowledgements
Giovanni Stanghellini and Thomas Fuchs: General Introduction

Section One: Historical and Cultural Background
1: Federico Leoni: Jaspers in his Time
2: Osborne P. Wiggins and Michael Alan Schwartz: Phenomenology and Psychopathology: In Search of a Method
3: Mario Rossi Monti: Jaspers' Critique for Psychoanalysis: between Past and Future
4: Christoph Mundt: Impact of Jaspers` General Psychopathology: The Range of Appraisal

Section Two: Methodological Issues and Concepts
5: Otto Doerr-Zegers and Héctor Pelegrina-Cetrán: Jaspers' General Psychopathology in the Framework of Clinical Practice
6: Chris Walker: Form and Content In Jaspers' Psychopathology
7: Louis A. Sass: Jaspers, Phenomenology, and the 'ontological Difference'
8: Christoph Hoerl: Jaspers on Explaining and Understanding in Psychiatry
9: Matthew R. Broome: Jaspers and Neuroscience
10: Matthias Bormuth: Jaspers the Pathographer
11: Jann E. Schlimme: Jaspers' Existential Concept of Psychotherapy
12: Giovanni Stanghellini: The Ethics of Incomprehensibility

Section Three: Clinical Concepts
13: Henning Sass and Umberto Volpe: Jaspers' Hierarchical Principle and Current Psychiatric Classification
14: Josef Parnas: On Psychosis: Karl Jaspers and Beyond
15: Matthew Ratcliffe: Delusional Atmosphere and the Sense of Unreality
16: Thomas Fuchs: The Self in Schizophrenia: Jaspers, Schneider and beyond
17: S. Nassir Ghaemi: Understanding Mood Disorders: Jaspers' Biological Existentialism
18: Alfred Kraus: Reaction and development of Manic and Melancholic-Depressive Patients

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Edited by Giovanni Stanghellini, Professor of Dynamic Psychology and Psychopathology , 'G. d'Annunzio' University, Chieti, Italy, and Thomas Fuchs, Karl Jaspers-Professor of Philosophy and Psychiatry, University of Heidelberg, Germany

Giovanni Stanghellini, MD and MD honoris causa, psychiatrist and psychotherapist, is full professor of Dynamic Psychology and Psychopathology at "G. d'Annunzio" University in Chieti (Italy). He is founding chair of the European Psychiatric Association section "Philosophy and Psychiatry>" and of the World Psychiatric Association section "Psychiatry and the Humanities". He also founded, with Bill Fulford and John Sadler, the International Network for Philosophy and Psychiatry. He is co-editor of the OUP series International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry. He has written extensively on the philosophical foundations of psychiatry. Among his books published by OUP are Nature and Narrative (with KWM Fulford, K. Morris and JZ Sadler, Eds.), Disembodied Spirits and Deanimated Bodies, Emotions and Personhood, (with R. Rosfort), and the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry (with KWM Fulford et al, Eds.).

Thomas Fuchs, MD, PhD, psychiatrist, psychotherapist and philosopher, is Karl Jaspers-Professor of Philosophy and Psychiatry at the University of Heidelberg. He heads the phenomenology section at the Psychiatric Department, University of Heidelberg, and the philosophy section of the German Psychiatric Association (DGPPN). He is co-ordinator of the interdisciplinary European Research Project "TESIS" on Embodied Intersubjectivity (2011-2015, www.tesis.rtn-eu <http://www.tesis.rtn-eu). He has published extensively on phenomenological psychology, psychopathology and theory of neuroscience. His book on the "Ecology of the Brain" will be published by OUP in 2013.