NYC AAPP

Upcoming Meetings Fall 2006

Location: NYU Department of Psychology

If interested in attending, please email cperring at yahoo dot com

NYC AAPP Saturday September 16

Room 469, 6 Washington Place, NYU (Psychology Dept)

230 - 430 PM

Mark S Roberts

The Madness of Two Presidents: Bush, Schreber and the Languages of

Power.

Initially, I intend to draw certain psychological parallels between

two presidents--Bush, of course, is the present U.S. president and

Daniel Paul Schreber was the president of the Supreme Court at

Leipzig in the latter part of the 19th century. The parallels,

however, are not in any respect attempts at clinical evaluations and

comparisons of the mental states of either figure. Rather, they are

intended to underscore the often overlooked relation between madness

and political power. In Bush's case, behavior and ideas very similar

to those of Schreber are seen as politically situated, that is, as

necessary actions dictated by some socio-political reality. In

Schreber's case, the more or less same ideas and actions are

interpreted as entirely mad, as severe deviations from some

acceptable norm. The reason for this, I will argue, is largely

contextual. Bush sits in the oval office; Schreber is strapped to his

bed in the Sonnenstein Asylum. Schreber's access to power is

effectively foreclosed, while Bush has virtually total access to

power. Given this, madness can easily flourish within the context of

political power, and this madness is not only disguised, but is also

revered and encouraged by those institutions, groups and individuals

that stand to benefit from this kind of unexamined power. The main

thesis and conclusion of my paper, then, is that the criteria

defining madness and sanity are, at least in part, mitigated by

external circumstances--particularly those related to political power

and, in Schreber's case, powerlessness.

Mark S. Roberts: Has written extensively on subjects related to

philosophical psychology, particularly ones falling within the area

of continental philosophy and critical theory. These works include an

anthology of contemporary French interpretations of the Schreber Case

(Psychosis and Sexual Identity:Toward a Post-Analytic View of the

Schreber Case), a book on the continually mysterious disorder,

Muchausen by Proxy Syndrome (Disordered Mother or Disordered

Diagnosis?: Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome),and an anthology of

writings on contemporary views of addiction (High Culture:

Reflections on Addiction and Modernity). His most recent book, The

Mark of the Beast: Animality and Human Oppression, is scheduled to be

published by Purdue University Press. He has also translated numerous

works from the French that deal with psychoanalytic theory, including

ones by Jean-Francois Lyotard and Julia Kristeva.

NYC AAPP Saturday October 21

Room 469, 6 Washington Place, NYU (Psychology Dept)

230 - 430 PM

Paula Caplan

"The Unscientific and Biased Nature of Psychiatric Diagnosis: Helping

Little and Doing Great Harm"

When clinical and research psychologist Paula J. Caplan served on two

committees that wrote the current edition of the DSM, she learned the

inside story of the utterly unscientific and highly political way

that the DSM authors decide what is and is not normal. She also has

learned through 20 years of work in this area about the daunting

array of kinds of harm that has come to some people solely because of

receiving a psychiatric label, and she has some ideas for solutions.

Paula J. Caplan is a clinical and research psychologist and Lecturer

at Harvard University, where she teaches Psychology of Sex and

Gender. She is the author of 10 books, including They Say You're

Crazy: How the World's Most Powerful Psychiatrists Decide Who's

Normal, and co-editor of one, Bias in Psychiatric Diagnosis, and is

former Full Professor of Applied Psychology and Assistant Professor

of Psychiatry, University of Toronto.