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Acknowledgments This book is a sequel to The Concepts of Psychiatry, seeking to provide a rationale for why the positive program set forward in that book should be taken seriously. Thus, it shares many of the same debts and acknowledgments of that earlier work, to which I must add and repeat a few. Any writer is in debt to his family’s tolerance for the solitary work of writing, and—despite having delayed this project after the birth of my son, Zane, in 2003, until the end of his second year—I am no exception . No person has had more influence on me personally or intellectually than has my father, Kamal Ghaemi, M.D. Rudolph Makkreel, at Emory University, a philosopher with expertise in the work of Wilhelm Dilthey, was generous with his time and helpful in revision of sections of the book. Howard Kushner, of the Emory School of Public Health, helped me think through how to understand work in the history of psychiatry. Ronald Pies provided comments on the sections written about the humanities, as did Gareth Owen on selected chapters. The bulk of the manuscript of this book was presented to a gathered conference of the Department of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University in January 2008. I thank the department for its attentiveness to these ideas and the helpful feedback I received from its faculty and staff, in par- ticular current chairman Raymond DePaulo and past chairman Paul McHugh. Phillip Slavney deserves special thanks for extensive discussion of these themes and his suggestion that I delve more deeply into Verstehen. Versions of the book were also presented in numerous conference settings,leading to valuable feedback that helped guide the book along its way.Those who heard these ideas and helped me think about them include the audience at a symposium of the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting and the departments of psychiatry of Northwestern, Case Western, and Yale Universities, the Cleveland Clinic, and the Universities of Tehran, Chile, and São Paolo. At Northwestern, I especially benefited from meeting and learning from Sidney Weissman, a former pupil of Roy Grinker, who introduced me to the relevance of Grinker’s ideas at a point in the manuscript where I had not come across his work. Toward the end, I debated the book’s main themes with the local Boston chapter of the Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry, led by Jennifer Radden; the gentle peer review of one’s friends is invaluable. I also thank Brett Mulder, a psychology graduate student, for thinking through my ideas about Verstehen with me. The appreciation I express for the input of my friends and colleagues is not meant to imply their assent to some, or even most, of the ideas I express here. Wendy Harris has remained a supportive and helpful editor at the Johns Hopkins University Press, and I thank her and her staff for all their efforts. Major portions of this book were written in the bohemian but welcoming confines of Aurora Coffeehouse,in theVirginia Highlands neighborhood of Atlanta,Georgia; if I could also thank the coffee that kept me going, I would. Leston Havens has been the most formative intellectual influence I have had among psychiatrists. He also introduced me to the late Paul Roazen. Paul was a man whom I knew from his books and whom I grew to love as a man. He passed away suddenly, and I have felt the void ever since. After our wonderful conversations (and after reading his books even more intensely), I realize what a pioneer he was and how forthright he had always been about seeking the truth, despite personal or professional cost, a characteristic that most of us do not possess. I tried in this book to live up to his standard of intellectual honesty. xii Acknowledgments ...

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