Mental ill-health and the epidemiology of representations

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00023752%3A_____%2F18%3A43919441" target="_blank" >RIV/00023752:_____/18:43919441 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00289/full" target="_blank" >https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00289/full</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00289" target="_blank" >10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00289</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Mental ill-health and the epidemiology of representations

Original language description

One of major challenges facing contemporary psychiatry is the insufficient grasp of relationship between individual and collective mental pathologies. A long tradition of diagnosing &quot;mental illness&quot; of society-exemplified by Erich Fromm-stands apart from approach of contemporary social psychiatry and is not perceived as relevant for psychiatric discourse. In this Perspective article, I argue that it is possible to uphold the idea of a supra-individual dimension to mental health, while avoiding the obvious pitfalls involved in categorical diagnosing of society as suffering from mental illness. I argue for an extended notion of public mental ill-health, which goes beyond the quantitative understanding of mental health as an aggregate of individual diseased minds captured in statistics, and which can be conceived as a dynamic, emergent property resulting from interactions of individual brains/minds in social space. Such a notion, in turn, presents a challenge of how to account for the interfacing between individual minds/brains and the collective mental phenomena. A suitable theoretical framework is provided by the notion of epidemiology of representations, originally formulated by cognitive anthropologist Dan Sperber. Within this framework, it is possible to highlight the role of public (material) representations in inter-individual transfer of mental representations and mental states. It is a suitable conceptual platform to explain how the troubling experiences with causal or mediating role on mental health, to a significant degree arise through a person&apos;s direct interaction with material representations and participation in collective mental states, again generated by material representations.

Czech name

—

Czech description

—

Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

30215 - Psychiatry

Project

<a href="/en/project/LO1611" target="_blank" >LO1611: Sustainability for The National Institute of Mental Health</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2018

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Frontiers in Psychiatry

ISSN

1664-0640

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

9

Issue of the periodical within the volume

Article Number: 289

Country of publishing house

CH - SWITZERLAND

Number of pages

6

Pages from-to

1-6

UT code for WoS article

000439124400001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85050273608