Seeing Beyond Diseases and Disorders: Symptom Complexes as Manifestations of Mental Constituents.
Frontiers in Psychiatry January 1, 2018 Maurício V Daker
Symptom complexes in psychopathology can be approached without assuming they represent physical deficits or diseases, allowing connections to normal mind and a dimensional, anthropological view of mental disorders. This contrasts with the prevailing medical model of delimited diseases. The approach gained prominence through Alfred Hoche and Carl Schneider, and late Kraepelin conceded that affective and schizophrenic manifestations may represent areas of human personality rather than disease processes. The notion of unitary psychosis and philosophical questions like the mind-body problem re-emerge in this context. The conceptual analysis indicates that mental symptom complexes may be manifestations of mind constituents or functions that make human experience possible.