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The dissolution of the highly evolved and complex triply responsive and profoundly intersubjective human cognitive system produces neurological and psychiatric disorders. The neurological disorders can be identified in terms of sensori-motor functions that have become faulty, but the psychological disorders are more subtle and set us apart from the shared milieu of meaning and relationships that we are adapted to in highly integrated ways not easily analysed in functional or physiological terms. Psychological disorders alienate us from the distinctively human milieu of agreed meanings and shared understanding and therefore go beyond isolated sensory or motor breakdowns and concern the higher integrative functions linking our lives together. The resulting conditions—psychological disorders—embed failures, reflecting distinctively human adaptation to a shared intersubjective world, and are analysed by "alienists."

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-93635-2_4

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