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2 results

  • Chapter 1 - ‘Classic’ and ‘Romantic’ in Psychiatry

  • from Introduction
  • Gareth S. Owen, King's College London and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
  • Book:
    Psychiatry and Human Nature
    Published online:
    03 May 2025
    Print publication:
    22 May 2025, pp 1-16

  • Summary

    Introduces and elaborates a distinction between the ‘classic’ and ‘romantic’ perspectives. Contextualises the terms using Goethe’s idea of ‘world literature’. Draws out qualities such as the ‘Olympian detachment’ of the classic perspective and the temporality, self-awareness and will to action of the romantic perspective with right and left political hues. Explores prototypes both in and out of psychiatry and outlines how the perspectives will be used in the book.

Psychiatry and Human Nature
  • Classic and Romantic Perspectives
  • Gareth S. Owen
  • Published online:
    03 May 2025
    Print publication:
    22 May 2025
  • Psychiatry is medicine's most multi-disciplinary specialty and arguably its most intellectually and emotionally demanding. It has long attracted dual interpretations from cool, detached perspectives valuing objectivity (classic) to hotter, embodied and more political perspectives valuing subjectivity (romantic). Professor Owen argues that psychiatry should become more aware of classic and romantic threads that run through it. He approaches core topics in psychiatry and throughout the book both research and case material are used to animate the concepts. The author relates psychiatry to questions in philosophical anthropology and ethics. He presents human nature, mental disorder, and human freedom as inherently inter-related. This is a book of broad appeal to anyone interested in psychiatry and why this branch of medicine has ethical, legal and political significance.