The Myth of Neuropsychiatry: A Look at Paradoxes, Physics, and the Human Brain Paperback - 1994 - 1st Edition

From the rear cover

Rarely does a book appear that shakes the prevailing assumptions of wisdom to their very foundations. The Myth of Neuropsychiatry is such a bold and riveting work. This provocative book rigorously challenges the myths currently pervading the field of mental health. Dr. Mender, the founding Director of the Neuropsychiatric Evaluation Service at the Payne Whitney Clinic, takes us on an intellectual journey in search of the mind and brain. In Dr. Mender's quest for a fuller understanding of the brain, he introduces us to the theories of the great philosophers who have shaped our basic views of the mind through the ages. In exploring the progression from Descartes to Spinoza to Husserl, he helps us to appreciate and assess more thoughtfully the impact their insights have had on modern neuropsychiatry. He convincingly shows how steadfast belief in only one school of thought - the materialist and mechanistic viewpoint that forms the basis of neuropsychiatry - has obscured a fuller vision of the mind. By reducing the mind to the purely biological features of the brain - the prevailing trend in psychiatry today - the profundity and vast richness of the many-faceted human mind is being denied altogether. As neuropsychiatry ascends to dominance in the mental health field, Dr. Mender skillfully brings his critical eye to its strengths and limitations. CAT scans and MRIs, with their colorful and vivid images, have unquestionably propelled medicine into the modern age. But perceiving them as a full depiction of the mental landscape can confer a false sense of capturing every nuance of the mind. Destined to become a classic, this work propounds a brilliant new theory of mental processes. Dr. Mendersynergistically draws on the most stunning breakthroughs in physics, mathematics, philosophy, psychology, and medicine to create an original, workable theory that can be applied to those seriously in need of psychological help. By seizing on the advances made in neuropsychiatry as but one approach to be employed with others, he allows for a more expansive vision of the mind, and paves a new road for more meaningfully treating those with mental infirmities.

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Citations

• Booklist, 04/01/1994, Page 1415