The Metaphor of Mental Illness [Paperback]

1. Introduction: the categorical argument
Part I - Answering Radical Questions
2. The likeness argument
3. The categorical argument
Part II - Metaphor
4. Metaphor
5. Two metaphors from physical medicine
Part III - The Metaphor of Mental Illness
6. The metaphor of mental illness
7. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, social construction, and metaphor
8. Metaphors and models
9. Conclusions

This book was certainly an interesting read, and the author attempts to take a truly neutral position on whether or not mental illness actually exists. --Doody's

This is a well-written stimulating book which addresses important issues that should be thought about and questioned by clinicians and researchers in all fields of psychiatry. --Psychological Medicine

Neil Pickeringis a lecturer in the Bioethics Centre of the Dunedin School of Medicine, at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. He has a PhD from the University of Wales. He teaches on undergraduate and graduate bioethics programmes at Otago. His primary research interests are in the philosophy of medicine (in particular the nature of disease and the nature and existence mental illness), medical humanities (where he has written on the use of poetry to teach ethics) and alternative medicine. Member of the Executive Committee of the Australasian Bioethics Association, and an Associate Editor of Journal of Bioethical Inquiry and of Medical Humanities Edition of the Journal of Medical Ethics.