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The Contribution of the Cambridge School of Psychopathology for the Understanding of Psychosomatic Symptoms

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Rethinking Psychopathology

Part of the book series: Theory and History in the Human and Social Sciences ((THHSS))

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Abstract

In the last decades, the Cambridge School of Psychopathology has carried out original work on the conceptual history of diverse mental symptoms. Under the leadership of Professor Berrios, it has demonstrated why mental phenomena cannot be the exclusive domain of biological psychiatry. Psychopathology is a complex area of knowledge that must be submitted to continuous historical and epistemological perusal. Its concepts, after critical evaluation, may need calibration or revision. It is in the core of Professor Berrios’s thought that psychiatry, and consequently, psychopathology, is hybrid in structure depending on both the biological and the human/social sciences. Biology and meaning are its fundamental components. Here I will present the results of my personal contribution to the debates on the project “Insight and the Monitoring of the Bodily and Mental Functions.” Referring to the Cambridge model of symptom formation, I show that we can reach a better description and understanding of the origin and development of psychosomatic symptoms.

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Correspondence to Lazslo A. Ávila .

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Ávila, L.A. (2020). The Contribution of the Cambridge School of Psychopathology for the Understanding of Psychosomatic Symptoms. In: Marková, I.S., Chen, E. (eds) Rethinking Psychopathology. Theory and History in the Human and Social Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43439-7_23

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