The major focus of Professor Kendler's research is in the genetics of psychiatric and substance abuse disorders. Two major methodologies are used in this research. The first involves large population based twin samples. In these twins, we address the aggregate role of genetic and environmental factors. We seek to understand how these factors interact and correlate, and how, through development, the vulnerability to psychiatric illness and drug abuse is expressed. I have focused my work with twin samples from Virginia - in particular the Virginia Adult Twin Study of Psychiatric and Substance Use Disorders - but also worked with twin samples from Norway, Sweden and Holland. My work has focused on a wide range of disorders including major depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, externalizing behaviors, alcoholism, and drug abuse. I have worked a lot toward understanding the genetic and environmental sources of comorbidity of psychiatric and substance use disorders.

Josef Parnas is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Copenhagen, psychiatric consultant at Psychiatric Center Hvidovre (Copenhagen) and co-founder and senior researcher at the Center of Subjectivity Research, an interdisciplinary research center, integrating philsophy of mind, phenomenology and psychopathology Universirt of Copenhagen, Faculty of the Humanities). Parnas has a long track recored in epidemiological, genetic and psychopathological research in schizophrenia. His research in recent years has mainly dealt with the abnormalities of the structure of experience, especially disorders of self-hood, in the schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Another focus is on the nature of the psychiatric object and psychodiagnostic assessment. He has for many years published on theoretical, phenomenological, and epistemological problems in psychopathology.

• Preface


• Table of Contents


• List of Contrubutors


• Introduction: Applying the Tools of the History and Philosophy of Science to Psychiatry


• Part I: Nature of Historical Change in Science


• Section 1: Objectivity and Scientific Change


• 1: Kenneth S. Kendler: Introduction to Pluralism, Incommensurability, and Scientific Change


• 2: Helen Longino: Pluralism, Incommensurability, and Scientific Change


• 3: John Dupré: For Objective, Value-Laden, Contextualist Pluralism


• Section 2: Change in Psychopathology


• 4: Josef Parnas: Introduction to History and Epistemology of Psychopathology


• 5: German E Berrios: History and Epistemology of Psychopathology


• 6: Helen Longino: Can Hybridity Overcome Dualism?


• Section 3: Scientific Disagreement in the Medical Context


• 7: Kenneth S. Kendler: Introduction to Expert Disagreement and Medical Authority


• 8: Miriam Solomon: Expert Disagreement and Medical Authority


• 9: Ian Hacking: Trust, Dissent and Decision Vectors


• Section 4: The Social, the Cultural, and Psychiatric Kinds


• 10: Kenneth S. Kendler: Introduction to Varieties of Social Constructionism and the Problem of Progress in Psychiatry


• 11: Kenneth F. Schaffner and Kathryn Tabb: Varieties of Social Constructionism and the Problem of Progress in Psychiatry


• 12: German E. Berrios: The Role of Cultural Configurators in the Formation of Mental Symptoms


• Part II: History of Broad Movements/Structures within Psychiatry


• Section 5: The Psychiatric History of the Diencephalon


• 13: Josef Parnas: Introduction to Biography of a brain structure: studying the diencephalon as an epistemic object


• 14: Emilie Bovet: Biography of a brain structure: studying the diencephalon as an epistemic object


• 15: Eric J. Engstrom: Some Reflections on Historiographic Strategies for the Neurosciences


• Section 6: The History of Psychiatry as Interdisciplinary History


• 16: Kenneth S. Kendler: Introduction to On Attitudes Toward Philosophy and Psychology in German Psychiatry, 1867-1917


• 17: Eric J. Engstrom: On Attitudes Toward Philosophy and Psychology in German Psychiatry, 1867-1917


• 18: Yuji Sato: Interdisciplinarity vs. compartmentalization: an eternal dilemma in psychiatry


• Section 7: Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis in the United States


• 19: Kenneth S. Kendler: Introduction to The Development of Psychoanalysis in the Context of American Psychiatry


• 20: Robert Michels: The Development of Psychoanalysis in the Context of American Psychiatry


• 21: Josef Parnas: Decline of psychoanalysis to the advantage of what?


• Section 8: The Operational Revolution


• 22: Kenneth S. Kendler: Introduction to Psychiatry Made Easy: Operation(al)ism and Some of its Consequences


• 23: Josef Parnas and Pierre Bovet: Psychiatry Made Easy: Operation(al)ism and Some of its Consequences


• 24: Kenneth F. Schaffner and Kathryn Tabb: Hempel as a Critic of Bridgman's Operationalism: Lessons for Psychiatry from the History of Science


• Section 9: The Evolution of Genetic Explanation in Psychiatry


• 25: Kenneth S. Kendler: Introduction to the Nature of Nature


• 26: Eric Turkheimer: The Nature of Nature


• 27: Peter Zachar: Is it Time for a "Copenhagen Interpretation" in Behavioral Genetics?


• Section 10: Psychiatry and Evolution


• 28: Josef Parnas: Introduction to What Can Evolution Tell us About the Healthy Mind?


• 29: John Dupré: What Can Evolution Tell us About the Healthy Mind?


• 30: Emilie Bovet: What can History and Social Studies of Sciences Teach us about Evolutionary Psychiatry?


• Part III: Specific Disorders from an Historical Perspective


• Section 11: Schizophrenia and the Dopamine Hypothesis


• 31: Josef Parnas: Introduction to Dopamine Hypothesis of Schizophrenia: An Updated Perspective


• 32: Kenneth S. Kendler: The Dopamine Hypothesis of Schizophrenia: An Updated Perspective


• 33: Miriam Solomon: Why is the Dopamine Hypothesis of Schizophrenia the Only Game in Town?


• Section 12: Conceptual status of depression today


• 34: Josef Parnas: Introduction to An Overview in a Biopsychosocioeconomic Context


• 35: Yuji Sato: An Overview in a Bio-psycho-socio-economic Context


• 36: Eric Turkheimer: What do We Want from A Depression Diagnosis?


• Section 13: The Shaping of Autism


• 37: Josef Parnas: Introduction to On the Ratio of Science to Activism in the Shaping of Autism


• 38: Ian Hacking: On the Ratio of Science to Activism in the Shaping of Autism


• 39: Kenneth S. Kendler: The Shaping of Autism and Other Psychiatric Disorders: An Alternative Perspective


• Section 14: The decision to include or exclude a diagnosis in psychiatric nosology: The case of premenstrual dysphoric disorder


• 40: Josef Parnas: Introduction to A DSM Insiders' History of Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder


• 41: Peter Zachar and Kenneth S. Kendler: A DSM Insiders' History of Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder


• 42: Robert Michels: The Construction of a Diagnosis is Not a Scientific Issue