Imperfect Cognitions

 This week on Imperfect Cognitions, we showcase a couple of posts by authors with papers published in a special issue from the European Journal of Analytic Philosophy ( EuJAP ). The special issue is on the  Philosophy of Medicine  with guest editors Saana Jukola and Anke Bueter.  Today's post is the second post of the series. Kathleen Murphy-Hollies discusses her paper in the special issue, which you can read  here . Kathleen is a philosophy PhD student and teaching fellow at the University of Birmingham, working primarily on confabulation and its effects for embodying virtuous traits.  Kathleen Murphy-Hollies In my paper, I discuss whether Wakefield’s hybrid account of disorder helps clarify the thorny issue of whether Gender Dysphoria (GD) should be included in the DSM as a disordered state or left out as merely a socially disvalued state. In the DSM-5, GD is described in individuals as “a marked incongruence between the gender they have been assigned to...

In this post, Antonella Mazziotta, MSc student at the  Institute for Mental Health  at the University of Birmingham, discusses Gender Dysphoria. Gender Dysphoria is a topic not so well understood by scientists and society with this being reflected in the type of treatments and stigma around LGBTQ+ communities. Antonella's research interests include exploring Gender Dysphoria in childhood as well as language comprehension and production in Mental Health conditions. Antonella Mazziotta I had the opportunity to observe how dysphoria affects transgender people, especially children, and how society plays a vital role in the psychological outcomes of treatment for young people. This led to my interest in researching the pathological features of Gender Dysphoria. Do we believe that transgender children are aware of their inner identity or simply confused and therefore have a mental disorder? The DSM-IV called this condition ‘Gender Identity Disorder’ which was changed to ‘Gender Dysp...

On 14th November there was an interesting conference at the Royal Society of Medicine on the effects of social media on mental health. Mary Aiken (University of College Dublin) discussed the Cyber Effect , her book which addresses the risks of social media on young people (cover below). Cyber space is a space and we need to consider the impact of it on vulnerable populations such as teens. We need to factor in developmental aspects (at what age should parents let children have a smartphone?). We need to recognise the continuous evolution of behaviour and as experts we need to drive policy initiatives and develop guidelines for parents and educators. Jon Goldin (Great Ormond Street Hospital) talked about the risks and benefits of social media for young people. Children like using social media for different reasons: they use it for communication, to express themselves, to gain confidence, for popularity, for entertainment, to develop a sense of belonging, to receive informati...