Quantcast
Channel: Percolator » Paul VoosenPercolator - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 16

Hallucinations Happen, and That Can Be OK

$
0
0

Fish feeding

One hallmark of the revolution in psychiatric research begun by the National Institute of Mental Health, as I explored in The Chronicle Review last week, is the sliding scale of the many symptoms that, together, compose the traditional psychiatric disorders. There is no on or off switch for mental illness, researchers say. There is only a dial.

For some disorders this makes intuitive sense; few people balk at the idea of being a little depressed or anxious. We’re human. It comes with the territory. But as the past decade has shown, this “dimensionality” is also seen in symptoms that had long seemed the lonely terrain of the distressed: the hallucinations and delusions tied to schizophrenia.

Indeed, when I asked Bruce Cuthbert, the prime force behind the institute’s project, for an example of the type of research he’d like to foster, his first example—after the work of Peter…

Read More


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 16

Trending Articles