Pathology Arises Out Fo The Ex Essay -- essays research papers

Concepts of pathology, as treated by the traditions of clinical psychology and psychiatry, define what is ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ in human behaviour. Various psychological paradigms exist today, each emphasising diverse ways of defining and treating psyopathology. Most commonly utilised is the medical model which is limited in many respects, criticised for reducing patients problems to a list of pathological symptoms that have a primarily biological base and which are to be treated behaviourally or pharmacologically (Schwartz & Wiggins 1999). Such reductionistic positivist ways of viewing the individual maintain the medical discourse of ‘borderline personality’, schizoid’, ‘paranoid’ or ‘clinically depressed’, often failing to address the wider socio- ltural environment of the individual. Pilgrim (1992) suggests that such diagnostic pidgeon-holing does not enhance humanity, nor aid those who are dealing with the distressed individual to find meaning. It also neglects to consider life beyond the physical, failing to address the more philosophical questions that abound from our very existence. Existential psychiatry and psychology arose in Europe in the 1940’s and 1950’s as a direct response to the dissatisfaction with prevailing efforts to gain scientific understanding in psychiatry (Binswanger 1963). Existentialism is the title of a set of philosophical ideas that emphasise the existence of the human being, the lack of meaning and purpose in life and the solitude of human existence. Existentialism stresses the jeopardy of life, the voidness of human reality and admits that the human being thrown into the world, a world in which pain, frustration, sickness, contempt, malaise and death dominates (Barnes 1962). How one positions oneself in that world becomes the focus for existential notions of pathology, a responsibility that is present for every human being, not one confined to the ‘mentally ill’. In this sense the human being is ‘response-able’ to the existential predicament that is life and the necessary struggles that arise through negotiating these conditions in every lived moment. In this essay I will give a brief outline of the history of existential thinkers, then discuss how t... ...  Lowrie). Princeton: Princton University Press Laing, R. D. (1960). The Divided Self. Harmondsworth: Penguin Lewis, C. S. (1943). The Abolition of Man. Oxford: Oxford University Press May, R. (1969). Love and Will. New York: Norton. May, R. & Yalom, I. (1984). Existential Psychotherapy. In Corsini, R. J. (ed.), Current  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Psychotherapies. Itasca Illinois: Peacock Owen, I. R. (1994). Introducing an existential-phenomenological approach: basic   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  phenomenological theory and research- Part 1. Counselling Psychology   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Quarterly, 7, (3) 261-273 Pilgrim, D. (1992). Psychotherapy and Political Evasions. In Dryden, W. & Feltham,C. (Eds.) Psychotherapy and It’s Discontents. Buckingham: Open University Press Satre, J. P. (1951). Being and Nothingness. (Trans. H. Barnes) Methuen: London Schwartz, M. A. & Wiggins, O. P. (1999). The Crisis of Present-Day Psychiatry:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Regaining the Personal. Psychiatric Times, 16, 9. Yalom, I. (1989). Love’s Executioner: And Other Tales of Psychotherapy. New York:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Harper Collins