Notable Links & Miscellanea - April 20, 2024

Somehow three independent perspectives, psychiatry and imagination and technology, together can frame the conceptual space needed—perhaps because they have little in common.

although virtually every mental health disorder is assumed to be biological and is often considered to involve genetics or brain structures, decades of research searching for an elusive biomarker or biological signature has been far from impressive.

Like many other diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association, the criteria are descriptive and somewhat arbitrary, representing professional opinion and consensus. Describing disorders through checklists of symptoms can distort the complexity of clinical realities and comorbidities. From a theoret

The challenge of trying to perceive, and experience, unconventional realities from the patient’s perspective is the heart of psychiatry, working through the distortions of both observer and observed. But inevitably the true innermost voices of the departed and the silenced, the suffering and the lost, remain private.