Le citoyen biologique: La neuropsychiatrie et l'inconscient

Brain science, this paper argues, has become the latest fetish of American scientism and behavorism. It claims to explain everything from how we decide to how we create, using facile platitudes about the brain to account for formidably complex psychological states. Among its many effects, such thinking views mental pathology largely as a set of biological disorders. While neuropsychiatry in practice can explain just 3 percent of mental pathology, its thinking increasingly shapes American psychiatry, where "biomarkers" define behavior and suffering as neurochemical, and psychiatrists frequently aim to treat both pharmacologically.