Kostas N. Fountoulakis - Psychobiology of Behaviour

This book is a comprehensive textbook of the psychobiology of behavior. It is written primarily for mental health professionals in general, doctors of various specialties outside mental health and students of medicine, psychologists and others who are interested in this topic. The editors apparently had in mind also particularly GPs who are increasingly faced with mental health or psychological or behavioral problems of their patients. Prof. Fountoulakis, who has written three chapters in this book, and the other authors had the vastly different tasks and needs of different groups in mind, considering multiple levels of details and depth.

Since the editors are both academic researchers and active doctors in everyday clinical practice, they could best meet the very demanding challenge of summarising the extensive research results in this field in a way that is digestible by the target group of readers.

A complete textbook, as the current one, needs to present the essence of things, but still the authors need to keep in mind that the era of sole authority has long passed. Any teaching text should provide, together with the essence, links to sources and data. In other words, no author is considered today a source unto himself/herself; he/she is rather the medium who carries knowledge to readers in a comfortable and practical way. Thus, a balance is needed between the inclusion of too many references, which would make the text too technical and difficult to read, and the inclusion of too few references, which would make the reader rely solely on the judgment and expertise of the author. The authors have tried to follow a middle line but seem inclined towards the first option. The approach is that it is much more important to show the reader the field of knowledge no matter how difficult and fuzzy it might be, rather than simply provide him with the conclusion.

This is obviously a difficult task. Currently, knowledge is increasing rapidly, and the sources one needs to scan are growing exponentially. New knowledge emerges constantly concerning neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neuropharmacology, neuropsychology, behavior psychology, psychosocial research, etc. Still many of these recent developments should be incorporated within the existing theoretical and practical knowledge in the respective fields. The time when theoretical knowledge and keeping in line with recent developments was considered to be a hobby or an extravagant intellectual exercise has long passed. In modern times, this is an important prerequisite for people working in the respective areas mentioned above.

The book follows the principle of an integrated approach. It looks from different angles at the complexity of the psychobiology of human behavior. This goal demands to include all kinds of knowledge, not only the evidence coming from the best designed empirical studies. A meaningful approach on the psychobiology of behavior cannot be restricted to the individual, but has to consider also the environment in all relevant aspects. Also conceptual issues should be discussed encompassing terms like psychological, behavioral, brain related, neurobiological, psychosomatic, etc. as well as the body-soul interaction. Finally, the intended better understanding of the psychobiology of human behavior shall help the mental help professionals and the doctors beyond this field to fulfil their mission which is primarily to help patients and their families.

Psychiatry/mental health have the unique characteristic that multiple perspectives could and should be taken into consideration in order to explain and understand the etiopathogenesis of mental disorders or in order to arrive at meaningful therapeutic tools. It is banal to repeat that humans are shaped by the interaction of their neurobiology with environmental events. What we need in the twenty-first century is to recognise the specific weight of different factors in the etiopathogenesis and the treatment tools. A vague bio-psycho-social model does no longer correspond to the state of the art of psychiatric/mental health research and practice. A better conceptualisation of mental illness is a pressing necessity today, and for this a deep understanding of the psychobiology of human behavior with all its dimensions, empirical results and theoretical conceptualisations is necessary.

Finally, this book deals with something which is indeed maybe the most challenging of all human desires: to understand human nature/human behavior itself. Whether such an understanding is possible is still a matter of philosophical debate; several philosophers argue that it is impossible for the human mind to fully understand itself since you need a higher level of functioning to understand a lower one. In this endeavor, the social and ideological and philosophical and religious philosophy itself is often embarrassing, one-sided and not always helpful for a deeper and meaningful understanding. For example, it was several centuries ago when Rene Descartes (15961650) proposed his mind-body dichotomy, better known later as the Cartesian dualism. With this Descartes provided the philosophical rationale for natural sciences and expelled metaphysical and religious explanations from the study of nature and the physical universe (res extensa), including the human body, but as a compromise he gave the mind (res cogitans) to religious beliefs and metaphysical ideas and preserved the concept concerning the divinity and immortality of the soul. These ideas, although are scientifically obsolete today, are much alive in lay culture and in the belief systems of groups of individuals and society in general, irrespective of specific religious and ideological or political inclinations or affiliations. This resilience of the Cartesian dualism has done much damage both in the progress of psychiatry and in the way mental health and illness is perceived and accepted by the general public. Dualism can be traced at the roots of stigma and rejection as well as in the form of aggression towards patients, since according to such an understanding of the human nature, mental illness is a sign of moral weakness, sin or ill will. A modern and scientifically based psychobiology of human behavior might help to overcome some of these problems. Such a scientific psychobiology of human behavior provides valuable insights for all professionals in the field, but also for the people beyond.