丁香园AV

, SUNY Upstate Medical University :: Bridging Science and Testimony: The Multitudinous Self Model for a Humanist Psychiatry
Friday January 24, 2025

Abstract: A central aim of psychiatry is to identify the properties of mental disorders to enable diagnosis and treatment. As a branch of both science and medicine, psychiatry draws on a variety of research practices to glean information about these properties, e.g., clinical drug trials, case studies. Recent work in philosophy of psychiatry has also drawn attention to the epistemic value of including first-person reports of individuals with mental disorders in investigating the properties of mental disorders and designing effective interventions. However, precisely how these standpoints will be reconciled with scientific and clinical perspectives remains underexplored. In this talk I present a model of the self (Multitudinous Self Model) that showcases how first-person reports can be integrated into research and clinical treatment in psychiatry. Engaging with the Multitudinous Self Model will also open doors for redefining and reimagining what kind of science psychiatry is and should be.