Linda A. W. Brakel

This volume's title is an homage to Freud's seminal work, "The Psychopathology of Everyday Life," published in 1901. In these poems Brakel brings to bear her psychoanalytic and philosophical background, as well as her senses of pathos and humor. This book contains poetic glimpses into family life, the mind and the body, loss and solidarity, humans and animals.The first section, Relationships, explores father-daughter interactions, extended family, neighbors, and spousal bonds. Death reappears in Section II States of Mind are States of Body. But the author tempers death with academics, ambition, physical deformity, and delusion. In Nations, States, Cities Brakel's travels through the United States and Mexico come to the fore, as well as her sense of humor. In Sections IV-VI the poet reacts to nature: seasons, landscapes, dogs (a favorite topic), birds, frogs, mice, moose, and amoebas. Humor and paradox are prevalent in her Section VII: Concepts. She dedicates Section VIII: An Everyday Tragedy to her sister-in-law's proximity and untimely death from leukemia. Her final section, Coda-An End to "Everyday," is a chronical of life, despair, and hope in the early days of the Covid 19 Pandemic.The Psychopathology of Everyday Life: Poems is a sort of primer to L.A.W. Brakel's world view and empathic capacities. One can say that in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life: Poems the author manages to go deep using simple language.

This book explores how the trans phenomenon can challenge the existing concept of the Self and its nature. The catalyst is Moore’s Paradox: can a trans person coherently state ‘I am a girl but I don’t believe that’? More deeply, three fundamental philosophical questions arise, of ontological, epistemological, and conceptual significance: what Self understands that the natal-gender is ‘wrong’? How does the trans person know that the natal-gender is ‘wrong’ and what counts as evidence? And finally, how does this effect the concept of Self itself? Seeking answers, Brakel considers various theories of the Self, including classical accounts, modern views, and models developed by selected gender theorists. The book then takes a biological turn, first developing an evolutionary proper-function analysis of gender and trans-gender and subsequently proposing the possibility of a new ontological phenotype. With a review of cutting-edge neuroscientificresearch conducted over the last twenty-five years, Brakel propels this timely and important investigation toward the future, using experimental philosophy empirical studies adapted from classic thought experiments on the nature of the Self.

In this volume, Brakel raises questions about conventions in the study of mind in three disciplines—psychoanalysis, philosophy of mind, and experimental philosophy. She illuminates new understandings of the mind through interdisciplinary challenges to views long-accepted. Here she proposes a view of psychoanalysis as a treatment that owes its successes largely to its biological nature—biological in its capacity to best approximate the extinction of problems arising owing to aversive conditioning. She also discusses whether or not "the mental" can have any real ontological standing, arguing that a form of reductive physicalism can be sufficient ontologically, but that epistemological considerations require a branch of non-reductive physicalism. She then notes the positive implications of this view for psychiatry and psychoanalysis, Finally, she investigates the role of "consistency" in method and content, toward which experimental philosophers strive. In essence, Brakel articulates the different sets of challenges pertaining to: a) ancient dilemmas such as the mind/body problem; b) longstanding debates about the nature of therapeutic action in psychoanalysis; and c) new core questions arising in the relatively young discipline of experimental philosophy.

In this volume, Brakel raises questions about conventions in the study of mind in three disciplines—psychoanalysis, philosophy of mind, and experimental philosophy. She illuminates new understandings of the mind through interdisciplinary challenges to views long-accepted. Here she proposes a view of psychoanalysis as a treatment that owes its successes largely to its biological nature—biological in its capacity to best approximate the extinction of problems arising owing to aversive conditioning. She also discusses whether or not "the mental" can have any real ontological standing, arguing that a form of reductive physicalism can be sufficient ontologically, but that epistemological considerations require a branch of non-reductive physicalism. She then notes the positive implications of this view for psychiatry and psychoanalysis, Finally, she investigates the role of "consistency" in method and content, toward which experimental philosophers strive. In essence, Brakel articulates the different sets of challenges pertaining to: a) ancient dilemmas such as the mind/body problem; b) longstanding debates about the nature of therapeutic action in psychoanalysis; and c) new core questions arising in the relatively young discipline of experimental philosophy.

Psychoanalytic theories have come in out of favour in the past hundred years. As a central theory behind recent empirically validated treatments such as mentalisation based therapy, there is a newfound interest in considering just what psychoanalysis can offer us in psychiatry and philosophy of mind. Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, and the A-Rational Mind is an interdisciplinary book with two aims. Firstly, to sharpen psychoanalytic concepts using philosophical tools and make psychoanalytic theory more viable to the academic community. Secondly, it looks to expand philosophy of mind so as to consider serious accounts of the unconscious and non-rational mental material predominant and ever-present in psychoanalytic data. The book explores some basic psychological phenomena- beliefs, desires, phantasies, wishes, and drives- examining a range of fascinating cases, and explaining their significance for both philosophers and psychoanalysts. The book revisits some of Freud's less famous cases (and one of his most famous) while exploring some lesser known phenomena such as akrasia (weakness of will). The book provides a powerful re-appraisal of psychoanalysis and the role it can play in helping us better understand human nature.