The void as cause of the mind

A critique on determinism in psychiatry When we are confronted with severe psychic problems as psychosis, thinking in psychiatry is inclined to use ‘natural’ categories as ”psychosis is a dysfunction of the brain”.... [ view full abstract ]

A critique on determinism in psychiatry
When we are confronted with severe psychic problems as psychosis, thinking in psychiatry is inclined to use ‘natural’ categories as ”psychosis is a dysfunction of the brain”. This tendency is subject to cyclic movements between ‘natural’ thinking on one hand and ‘cultural’ thinking on the other hand. Psychiatric reality is much more complicated to reduce it to simple categories, one side or the other. A more appropriate model would be one in which the three aspects of human being interact with each other. Following the theory of Jacques Lacan I would choose for the aspects as follows: th Real of the biological part, the Imaginary of perception and the Symbolic of speaking and thinking. These orders are related in a dilectical way. On this point the discourse on causality by Aristotle can help us to understand complex processes in human beings. I will connect the four causalities of Aristotle, causa materialis, causa formalis, causa efficiens and causa finalis with the orders of the Real, the Imaginary and the Symbolic. We will start with the material cause where there is a void in the Real what is filled in with symbolic ‘stuf’ (i.e. language) as a final cause. The intermediate steps I will present in this lecture.