Descartes' dogma and damage to Western psychiatry.

Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences
A Ventriglio, D Bhugra

Abstract

René Descartes described the concept of mind-body dualism in the 16th century. This concept has been called his error but we prefer to call it his dogma because the error was recognised much later. We studied the original writings translated by various scholars. We believe that his dogma has caused tremendous amount of damage to Western psychiatry. This dualism has created boundaries between mind and body but as we know they are inextricably interlinked and influence each other. This has affected clinical practice and has increased the dichotomy between psychiatric services and the physical health care services in the West at least. This dualism has also contributed to stigma against mental illness, the mentally ill and the psychiatric services. We propose that it is time to abandon this mind-body dualism and to look at the whole patient and their illness experiences as is done in some other health care systems such as Ayurveda.

References

Apr 1, 1970·Journal of the History of Biology·T S Hall
Jun 1, 1992·History of Psychiatry·D Bhugra
Jan 29, 2008·The Journal of School Nursing : the Official Publication of the National Association of School Nurses·Susan Harrington
Jun 1, 2012·Administration and Policy in Mental Health·Dror Ben-ZeevRobert E Drake
Aug 15, 2013·Administration and Policy in Mental Health·Kimberly HoagwoodNicholas Ialongo
Apr 25, 2015·The International Journal of Social Psychiatry·Antonio Ventriglio, Dinesh Bhugra

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Citations

Sep 4, 2015·Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences·P Dazzan, C Barbui
Jun 15, 2017·Zeitschrift für Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie und Psychotherapie·Wolfgang Briegel
May 21, 2018·Medicine, Health Care, and Philosophy·Hane Htut Maung
Jan 28, 2017·World Psychiatry : Official Journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA)·Dinesh Bhugra, Antonio Ventriglio

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