Subject: RE: M-PSY: "Evolutionary Psychiatry: A New Beginning"
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 21:11:01 -0000


Robert Johnston  wrote
<snip>

Despite an apparent open-endedness regarding the nature of mental illness,
Storr's book would appear to continue to contribute to the tradition of
seeing mental illness according a biologistic medical model which
pathologises "abnormality".  It may well be true that schizophrenics
display unusual biological characteristics, and that schizophrenia occurs
in families through generations, but it seems to me that it is both
unscientific and unhelpful to lay blame at the door of biology.  It is
unscientific because the issue of cause is inadequately unaddressed.  To
assume that (some) schizophrenia is caused by biological abnormality may be
similar to assuming that adrenalin causes fear, and then seeking to
overcome fear by reducing the influence of adrenalin.  It is unhelpful
because of the harmful effects of labelling and stigmatisation, arbitrarily
applied.

Having read a fair amount of Antony Storr's work I think that he would agree with alot of what you say. The article that you comment on was a review by Anthony Storr of a book written by Anthony Stevens and John Price. A recent book by Storr "Feet of Clay" addresses the difficulty in classifying of who is mad and who is sane. He tries to convey that many people subscribe to dellusional belief systems and schizophrenic type thought processes yet are considered sane because those beliefs are accepted by large groups. I don't really see Anthony Storr as an evolutionary Psychiatrist but in a strong sense but rather he is saying that schizophrenia could be seen as an adaptive process that has gone wrong or - taken over. This doesn't give an explanation of why it has gone wrong it certainly doesn't rule out  environmental or social effects. Maybe depression and neurosis could be seen in the same way.

David Kelly



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