Phenomenology

“Go back to the things themselves”

– Edmund Husserl (founder of the phenomenological movement)

“Psychopathology is applied philosophy”
– John Cutting (former Consultant Psychiatrist at the Maudsley and Bethlem Hospitals)

Phenomenology, or ‘the phenomenological movement’, is a philosophical tradition with origins in Europe in the 19th century.

It is primarily interested in the human experience of time, body, self, emotion, etc. and has had a wide influence across the sciences, arts and humanities which continues to this day.

One of its most interesting, but less known, interactions has been with psychiatry. Influence has been bi-directional with psychiatry learning from phenomenology and phenomenology from the unusual forms of experience which patient have and which psychiatrists encounter.

The Maudsley philosophy group has worked to uncover this remarkable interaction between the phenomenological movement and psychiatry and make it relevant to a new generation of mental health researchers, practitioners and policy makers.

This has been through a combination of historical work and through seminars and lectures exploring contemporary topics.

Models of the Mind

“Our methods of investigating a human being do not give us any unitary picture of the individual but only a number of pictures each with its own specific and compelling force?”
– Karl Jaspers

Models of Mind describes the main categories which shape psychiatrists’ approach to and understanding of mental disorders. Clinically influential models include biological, psychodynamic, and cognitive, but there are many other influential models such as the social constructionist model or religious accounts of mental distress.

Models vary across history and in different cultures, and also evolve. The Trust seeks to explore the historical background and contemporary applications and implications of these models.

Power and Personality 

“Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely”
– Lord Acton, historian

“The experience of being in power itself brings about changes in mental states which then manifest themselves in hubristic behaviour”
– Lord Owen (former UK foreign secretary and neurologist)

There is a growing body of opinion that the exercise of power can distort thinking and create personality changes in leaders that affect their decision making.

Lord David Owen founded the Daedalus Trust to raise awareness of such changes and the MPS now continues this interest and seeks to understand power and personality better by fostering multi-disciplinary inquiry.

The group maintains a central repository of knowledge on the subject, including on the “hubris syndrome” – an acquired personality change following exposure to power.

Conferences and edited collections have brought together leading thinkers to discuss hubris from interdisciplinary perspectives.  The first, in 2012, was organised jointly with the Royal Society of Medicine, the second in 2013 with the Cambridge Judge Business School. For the third in 2014, the Trust again partnered with the Royal Society of Medicine. In 2016 the Trust collaborated with the Ashridge Management College on executive coaching and in 2017 a conference was held jointly with the RSM and the Women’s Medical Federation.

The MPG has links with a computational neurolinguistics research group at St George’s University of London that is expert in analysing language change in political leaders as well as the Surrey Business School which conducts research into hubris in business contexts and is developing an ‘Anti-Hubris’ toolkit to help boards, directors, managers, recruiters, business thinkers and identify, mitigate or manage the highly negative effects hubris can have.

“The years around 1918 have sharpened our eye for the significance of personality disorder in times of upheaval, and during times of revolution large numbers of abnormal personalities gain a transient significance. It is true they have neither made the revolution nor contributed constructively to it but such a situation affords them a momentary opportunity to manifest themselves. In peaceful times, says Kretschmer, we assess them in the Courts with a medical report; in turbulent times they become our rulers.”
– Karl Jaspers, General Psychopathology P733/4 (7th edition 1959)