 Psychopathology of mental disorders. Chapter 14 in The Atlas of Social Complexity, 2024, pp 165-183 from Edward Elgar Publishing Abstract: This chapter explores the question: What is a mental disorder and how best should we assess it in terms of social complexity? There is general agreement that, when it comes to psychopathology, what matters most is that a person is legitimately troubled by their emotional, cognitive, behavioural or social difficulties. In short, they are suffering. There is less agreement, however, on what constitutes a mental disorder. For example, are a person’s psychological difficulties a brain disease or latent psychological construct? Or are they a scientific classification that points to the clustering of sets of psychological symptoms that have no fundamental underlying biological existence? The former view has historically dominated. The latter - referred to as the new science of mental disorders - is fast becoming the major alternative, with the potential to override the former. Our goal in this chapter is to review this new field and its accomplishments and controversies. Keywords: Development Studies; Economics and Finance; Environment; Geography; Innovations and Technology; Politics and Public Policy Research Methods; Sociology and Social Policy; Teaching Methods; Urban and Regional Studies (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:19387_14 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing |
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