Overview

The fields of psychiatry and clinical psychology incorporate more viable explanatory approaches than any other university discipline. A central conundrum of the field is how to integrate this diversity of perspectives, and to translate them into improvements in etiologic theories, classification and treatment. Although the chapters emphasize different approaches to levels of analysis, other relevant topics are explored including the strengths and limits of reduction, the importance of high-level mental functions such as consciousness and the self, the role and limitations of intralevel and interlevel causal processes, the advantages of a mechanistic approach to the analysis of psychiatric illness, the relative strengths and limitations of the current DSM nosology and how that might be complemented by approaches such as the United States' National Institute of Mental Health's Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative, and the appropriate role of phenomenology in psychiatric practice and research. To explore these topics, the book brings together leading thinkers who have been widely published and are well-known and respected in their areas of expertise. A unique feature of the book is that every chapter is accompanied both by an introduction written by one of the editors and a commentary written by another of the contributing authors--