The Role of Emotions in Psychiatric Diagnosis

It was the German psychiatrist Kurt Schneider (1887-1967) who used the analysis of emotional life undertaken by the philosopher Max Scheler (1874-1928) to the benefit of psychiatric diagnostics. In a first step attention is given to the cardinal questions in psychiatry. Then the answers of the philosopher Max Scheler and the psychiatrist Kurt Schneider are compared. Finally the possibilities and limitations of Max Scheler´s philosophy of feelings in its application to Kurt Schneider´s clinical psychopathology are discussed in detail. The book is adressed to philosophers, psychiatrists and psychologists with an interest in the historical and philosophical foundations of psychopathology.

MD, PhD, MHBA, studied medicine, philosophy, educational theory and psychopathology at the University of Cologne and Health Business Administration at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He finished Medical School at The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, College of Medicine, Pennsylvania State University (USA). After different training posts inter alia at the "Burghölzli" Psychiatric University Hospital of Zurich (Switzerland), the former Bexley Hospital in Kent (United Kingdom) and the University Hospitals of Cologne and Aachen he is now a certified neurologist in Germany with additional qualifications in emergency medicine, social medicine and physician´s quality management.