S5 E9 - Miriam Solomon on How Stigma Shapes Psychiatry

The HPS Podcast - Conversations from History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science

This week, Thomas Spiteri speaks with Professor Miriam Solomon, Professor of Philosophy at Temple University and a leading voice in philosophy of science, medicine, and psychiatry.

Solomon reflects on her intellectual trajectory, from her early studies in the natural sciences at Cambridge and her doctoral work at Harvard, to her later contributions in the philosophy of medicine and psychiatry. She describes how questions about knowledge-making — from consensus conferences to evidence-based medicine — led her to examine psychiatry and, most recently, the constitutive role of stigma in shaping psychiatric categories.

In the conversation, Solomon argues that stigma is not only a social force attached to mental illness from the outside but also a factor that has shaped psychiatry from within. It has influenced the recognition, definition, and revision of diagnostic categories, as she illustrates through cases drawn from the history of psychiatry. She situates these examples within broader debates about the nature of psychiatric disorder, the limitations of the DSM, and possible alternative frameworks.

In this episode, Solomon:

• Recounts her path from philosophy of science to psychiatry, shaped by formative years at Cambridge and Harvard
• Explains why consensus conferences and evidence-based medicine sparked her interest in psychiatry and the DSM
• Argues that stigma is not only a social prejudice but a constitutive force within psychiatric knowledge
• Examines the role of stigma in categories like Asperger’s and PTSD, and its entanglement with hermeneutical injustice
• Assesses debates over defining psychiatric disorder, including the harmful dysfunction model, and emphasises the centrality of “harm” over “dysfunction”
• Discusses the challenges facing the DSM
• Calls for greater awareness of how stigma operates, both within psychiatry and in everyday experiences of mental illness

Relevant Links

• Miriam Solomon’s home page
• On the Concept of "Psychiatric Disorder": Incorporating Psychological Injury
• Miriam Soloman PhilPapers
• Making Medical Knowledge (Oxford University Press, 2015)

Transcript coming soon.
Photo Credit: Amira Solomon

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