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When Self-Consciousness Breaks: Alien Voices and Inserted Thoughts (Philosophical Psychopathology)

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Stephens and Graham here continue the much-needed insertion of philosophically rigorous thought into psychiatry and clinical psychology that has been begun by philosophical psychopatholoy. For some of us who work within these fields, the logical sloppiness of most of the theoretical positions on madness available is quite infuriating, and it is satisfying to see these two philosophers come in and "clean house." However, in some respects, these authors' command of the literature on madness is a little disappointing. For example, they suggest that the alien quality of alien voices and inserted thoughts may be due to the subject's inability to integrate these experiences into her picture of herself as agent- a theory that is probably right but not exactly original. Post-Freudian psychoanalysts have been saying almost identical things for years, and it is too bad Stephens and Graham were not aware enough of psychoanalytic literature to make real use of it; if they did so they might have found themselves in possession of a more comprehensive phenomenology of agency and a more highly differentiated account of its distortions. As it is, to be sure, their theory is nevertheless pretty good, and of course one can't expect those doing this kind of interdisciplinary work to be completely versed in every single theory available. Perhaps the best quality of the book is that it is capable of introducing psychologists and psychiatrists to the intellectual rigor of philosophical discourse.