One Century of Karl Jaspers' General Psychopathology

2013 sees the centenary of Jaspers' foundation of psychopathology as a science in its own right.

In 1913 Karl Jaspers published his psychiatric opus magnum - the Allgemeine Psychopathologie (General Psychopathology). Jaspers was working at a time much like our own - with rapid expansion in the neurosciences, and responding to the philosophical challenges that this raised. The idea inspiring his book was very simple: to bring order into the chaos of abnormal psychic phenomena by rigorous description, definition and classification, and to empower psychiatry with a valid and reliable method to assess and make sense of abnormal human subjectivity.

After almost one century, many of the concepts challenged by Jaspers are still at issue, and Jaspers' investigation is even now the ground for analyses and discussions. With a new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) imminent, many of the issues concerning methodology and diagnosis are still the subject of much discussion and debate. This volume brings together leading psychiatrists and philosophers to discuss and evaluate the impact of this volume, its relevance today, and the legacy it left.

Giovanni Stanghellini, Professor of Dynamic Psychology and Psychopathology , 'G. d'Annunzio' University, Chieti, Italy,Thomas Fuchs, Karl Jaspers-Professor of Philosophy and Psychiatry, University of Heidelberg, Germany

Giovanni Stanghellini, MD and MD honoris causa, psychiatrist and psychotherapist, is full professor of Dynamic Psychology and Psychopathology at G. d'Annunzio University in Chieti (Italy). He founding chair of European Psychiatric Association section "Philosophy and Psychiatry" and of World Psychiatric Association section "Psychiatry and the Humanities". He also founded, with Bill Fulford and John Sadler, the Intenrantional Network for Philosophy and Psychiatry. He is co-editor of the OUP series International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry.

He has written extensively on the philosophical foundations of psychiatry. Among his books published by OUP are Nature and Narrative (with KWM Fulford, K. Morris and JZ Sadler, Eds.), Disembodied Spirits and Deanimated Bodies, Emotions and Personhood, (with R. Rosfort), and Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry (with KWM Fulford et al, Eds.).

Thomas Fuchs, MD, PhD, psychiatrist, psychotherapist and philosopher, is Karl Jaspers-Professor of Philosophy and Psychiatry at the University of Heidelberg. He heads the phenomenology section at the Psychiatric Department, University of Heidelberg, and the philosophy section of the German Psychiatric Association (DGPPN). He is co-ordinator of the interdisciplinary European Research Project "TESIS" on Embodied Intersubjectivity (2011-2015, www.tesis.rtn-eu http://www.tesis.rtn-eu). He has published extensively on phenomenological psychology, psychopathology and theory of neuroscience. His book on the "Ecology of the Brain" will be published by OUP in 2013.