Self in Neuroscience and Psychiatry

In recent years the clinical and cognitive sciences and neuroscience have contributed important insights to understanding the self. The neuroscientific study of the self and self-consciousness is in its infancy in terms of established models, available data and even vocabulary. However, there are neuropsychiatric conditions, such as schizophrenia, in which the self becomes disordered and this aspect can be studied against healthy controls through experiment, building cognitive models of how the mind works, and imaging brain states. In this 2003 book, the first to address the scientific contribution to an understanding of the self, an eminent, international team focuses on current models of self-consciousness from the neurosciences and psychiatry. These are set against introductory essays describing the philosophical, historical and psychological approaches, making this a uniquely inclusive overview. It will appeal to a wide audience of scientists, clinicians and scholars concerned with the phenomenology and psychopathology of the self.

'This is a thought provoking book. Kircher and David are to be congratulated on bringing together a set of seminal contributions on which further conceptual and scientific advances in understanding the phenomena of psychosis and their relationship to the human capacity of language can be based.' Journal of Neural Neurosurgery Psychiatry, 'This volume on the topic of the self offers a diversity of points of view, and it is the merit of the editors to welcome contributions from such diverse domains as the cognitive sciences, philosophy, theory and clinics of psychiatry and the neurosciences … most interesting and solid. the volume is to be recommended to anyone who is interested in the self, from a philosophical, clinical or (neuro)psychological point of view. the diversity of chapters offers richness, not confusion … this interdisciplinary volume on the self is very readable and enjoyable. We hope the future shall bring more volumes compiled in the same spirit …' Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences

Prof. A. David, Section of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London, SE5 8AF. Anthony David was born 14.1.1965. 1985–92 studies in medicine, philosophy, literature at the University of Munich, Germany and University of Washington, Seattle, USA. 1992–4 Training Psychiatrist, Dept. Psychiatry, University of Munich, Germany. 1994-current Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Tübingen, Germany. 1997–2000 Researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK 2000–1 Dept. of Neurology, Univ. of Tübingen, Germany. Book: Neuronale Korrelate von Sprachproduktion und -verständnis bei Gesunden und Patienten mit Schizophrenie, Steinkopf Verlag (forthcoming) publications in leading journals on functional brain imaging, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's dementia, geriatric medicine, history of psychiatry, relaxation techniques.