Of Minds and Brains and Cocreation: Psychopharmaceuticals and Modern Technological Imaginaries

Christians are not immune to psychological and psychiatric illness. Yet, Christians should also be careful not to permit popular cultural trends to shape the way that they think about the use of psychiatric treatment with medication. In this essay, I suggest that the tendencies for default usage of...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Bishop, Jeffrey P. 1967- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Oxford University Press [2018]
In: Christian bioethics
Year: 2018, Volume: 24, Issue: 3, Pages: 224-245
IxTheo Classification:CD Christianity and Culture
CF Christianity and Science
KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history
NCH Medical ethics
ZD Psychology
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:Christians are not immune to psychological and psychiatric illness. Yet, Christians should also be careful not to permit popular cultural trends to shape the way that they think about the use of psychiatric treatment with medication. In this essay, I suggest that the tendencies for default usage of psychiatric medication can be problematic for Christians in contemporary culture where a technological imaginary exists. Modern scientific studies of psychiatric medication are partly constructive of how we imagine ourselves. The typical justification for the usage of technology in contemporary culture is the theme of cocreation with God, where Christians see any usage of technology as equivalent to our participating in God's ongoing creative activity. I challenge these ideas in the foregoing paper, noting that the modern technological imaginary that animates modern psychiatry is as constricting as it is enabling. I conclude with a different take on what it might mean for Christians to be cocreators with God.
ISSN:1744-4195
Contains:Enthalten in: Christian bioethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1093/cb/cby009