Date: 19 May 2010
Time: 4:00 - 5:30pm
Venue: Room 150, Main Building, The University of Hong Kong

The Boundaries and Definition of Mental Disorder: Evolutionary Theories and the DSM by Derek Bolton (Professor of Philosophy & Psychopathology at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London; Honorary Consultant Clinical Psychologist and NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London; Wellcome Trust Centre for Humanities and Health at King's College London. )

Abstract:
The boundaries of mental disorder are difficult to draw: they blur into physical illness, ordinary distress in response to day-to-day stressors and transitions, and in other directions, into anti-social behaviour. These problems have been identified since the critiques of psychiatry in the 1960s, and have continued, aggravated by large increases in prescribing medication for common mental health problems, and by worries about mental illness in relation to public safety. Conceptualizations of mental disorder help up to understand these problems, and two main kinds may be considered. The first are the definitions of mental disorder in the textbooks of psychiatric diagnosis - of the World Health Organization (ICD) and the American Psychiatric Association (DSM). The second are theoretical papers on the definition of mental disorder (and physical disorder) in terms of evolutionary theory. The problems of boundaries and definition will be considered in this lecture.

About the speaker:
Professor Bolton took a first in Moral Sciences in Cambridge, including Part II Tripos in Logic and Philosophy of Science, in 1973, followed by a Ph.D. at Cambridge in Wittgenstein's philosophy (1973), the basis for An Approach to Wittgenstein’s Philosophy (London: Macmillan; Humanities Press: NY, 1979). He read undergraduate Psychology at University College London and trained as a Clinical Psychologist at the Institute of Psychiatry, joining the faculty in 1979, with clinical work in the Maudsley Hospital.

Professor Bolton's clinical work has been mainly in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), in-patient and, more recently, out-patient. Currently he is director of the National and Specialist CAMHS Anxiety Clinic in the South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

Managerial and administrative experience includes National Services Liaison Psychologist, 1993-1994, Head of Clinical Psychology Services, Bethlem and Maudsley NHS Trust 1995-2000, and Associate Director for Clinical Governance, South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, 2000-2004.

Main teaching activities within the College include for the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, Diploma in Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies for Children and Adolescents, and MSc. in Philosophy of Mental Disorder.

Professor Bolton is a clinical researcher in the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London. His research has focussed mainly on paediatric obsessive compulsive disorder, recent research including behavioural genetic phenotyping of childhood OCD in relation to anxiety and tics and to normative childhood repetitive routines, and two treatment trials, one of exposure with response-prevention and another using a cognitive model and therapy methods. Other clinical research interests include longitudinal follow-up of adolescents following psychological trauma. Current clinical research includes psychological treatment trials for paediatric generalised anxiety disorder, including a qualitative study of young people's experience of therapy.

Professor Bolton also researches in philosophical issues in psychiatry, and is currently a senior faculty member of the new Centre for Humanities and Health at King's College London, funded by the Wellcome Trust. Current interests in this field include nature of causal explanation in psychology and psychiatry, the epistemological basis of evidence-based healthcare, and conceptualization of disorder and its relation to distress.

For further enquiries, please contact Dr Barbara Dalle Pezze.