- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Cognition
- Chapter 2 Affectivity
- Chapter 3 Desire
- Chapter 4 Character
- Chapter 5 Action
- Chapter 6 Self-ascription
- Chapter 7 Memory
- Chapter 8 Body
- Chapter 9 Identity
- Chapter 10 Development
- Chapter 11 Diagnosis/Antidiagnosis
- Chapter 12 Understanding/Explanation
- Chapter 13 Reductionism/Antireductionism
- Chapter 14 Facts/Values
- Chapter 15 Gender
- Chapter 16 Race and Culture
- chapter 17 Competence
- Chapter 18 Dangerousness
- Chapter 19 Treatment and Research Ethics
- Chapter 20 Criminal Responsibility
- Chapter 21 Religion
- Chapter 22 Darwinian Models of Psychopathology
- Chapter 23 Psychoanalytic Models
- Chapter 24 Phenomenological and Hermeneutic Models
- Chapter 25 Neurobiological Models
- Chapter 26 Cognitive-Behavioral Models
- Chapter 27 Social Constructionist Models
- Chapter 28 Setting Benchmarks for Psychiatric Concepts
- Chapter 29 Defining Mental Disorder
- Chapter 30 Mental Illness and Its Limits
- Index
Setting Benchmarks for Psychiatric Concepts
Setting Benchmarks for Psychiatric Concepts
- Chapter:
- (p.409) Chapter 28 SETTING BENCHMARKS FOR PSYCHIATRIC CONCEPTS
- Source:
- The Philosophy of Psychiatry
- Author(s):
- Jennifer Radden
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
This chapter analyzes the so-called “benchmark problem”, which is the problem of determining a diagnostic benchmark beyond which the ordinary (or normal) becomes extraordinary (or abnormal). Through an exploration of three diagnoses—chronic fatigue syndrome, schizophrenia, and Tourette's syndrome—it shows the extent to which psychiatric diagnosis involves what philosophers have called essentially contested concepts. It argues that when discernible physically abnormal states are absent, benchmarks for normality and tolerability are intrinsically unstable and arbitrary.
Keywords: benchmark problem, chronic fatigue syndrome, schizophrenia, Tourette's syndrome, normality, tolerability
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Cognition
- Chapter 2 Affectivity
- Chapter 3 Desire
- Chapter 4 Character
- Chapter 5 Action
- Chapter 6 Self-ascription
- Chapter 7 Memory
- Chapter 8 Body
- Chapter 9 Identity
- Chapter 10 Development
- Chapter 11 Diagnosis/Antidiagnosis
- Chapter 12 Understanding/Explanation
- Chapter 13 Reductionism/Antireductionism
- Chapter 14 Facts/Values
- Chapter 15 Gender
- Chapter 16 Race and Culture
- chapter 17 Competence
- Chapter 18 Dangerousness
- Chapter 19 Treatment and Research Ethics
- Chapter 20 Criminal Responsibility
- Chapter 21 Religion
- Chapter 22 Darwinian Models of Psychopathology
- Chapter 23 Psychoanalytic Models
- Chapter 24 Phenomenological and Hermeneutic Models
- Chapter 25 Neurobiological Models
- Chapter 26 Cognitive-Behavioral Models
- Chapter 27 Social Constructionist Models
- Chapter 28 Setting Benchmarks for Psychiatric Concepts
- Chapter 29 Defining Mental Disorder
- Chapter 30 Mental Illness and Its Limits
- Index