As long as it was believed that reframing mental illness as brain disease reduced stigma, the bio-biobio model could be perceived as nourishing acceptance, diversity, and human rights. Biological explanations seemed to exempt individuals from responsibility for their disease (Corrigan et al. 2002, Lopez-Ibor 2002). It turns out that this destigmatizing effect has been exaggerated and that the biological conception of mental illness has sometimes even provided new grounds for intolerance (Angermeyer and Matschinger 2005; Bennett, Thirlaway, and Murray 2008; Phelan 2005; Read and Harré 2001; Schnittker 2008).
Inspired by the homonymous book by Fernando Vidal and Francisco Ortega, this timespace presents the authors' genealogy of the cerebral subject and the influence of the neurological discourse in human sciences, mental health and culture.
