David Bell
Dr. David S. Bell, neuropsychiatrist, trained in Sydney Australia from 1955 and in London in 1961-2 before running the Psychiatric Research Unit, which combined neurosurgery and neurology with the mental health disciplines. He took a special interest in epilepsy and drug addiction. Moving into private practice in 1970, he turned his interest in neuropsychiatry to the forensic assessment of head injury. Along the way he developed a therapeutic community and spent a great deal of time in group therapy. In a sense he was the creature of his times, described in his autobiography.
Schizophrenia produces the epitome of madness. It generates wild ideas of contact with the metaphysical and supernatural, compelling hallucinations and utter strangeness, which made it seem to pre-modern societies divine or satanic possession. It deranges meme production (see “The Atoms...
The most serious criticism I have of the President, who declared a war on drugs, is that he gave a gratuitous opening to those, who with equally asinine simplicity, assert it a failure. Restrained by wiser counsel, perhaps reflecting on...
Humans succeed so well at using causes to achieve desired effects that David Hume’s assertion in 1739 still seems preposterous. He held that we cannot know the connection between cause and effect. We overlook the way we gain what knowledge...