This post is by Awais Aftab (Department of Psychiatry, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA). In this blog post he introduces and summarizes the article “ Mental Disorder and Social Deviance ”, co-written with Mohammed Abouelleil Rashed (Philosophy, Birkbeck College), and published in International Review of Psychiatry . Aftab also leads the interview series ‘ Conversations in Critical Psychiatry ’ for Psychiatric Times which is likely to be of great interest to the readers of this blog. Awais Aftab I have been fascinated by the problem of distinguishing between “mental disorder” and “social deviance” since the early days of my psychiatric training. My exposure to the antipsychiatry philosophical literature had left me with a lingering, nagging doubt that unless there was some valid way of making this distinction, the legitimacy of psychiatry as a profession would stand on precarious and perilous ground. Social deviance refers to actions or behaviors that ...
A blog at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, and mental health