Genetic Determinism, Psychiatry and Place

Genetic Determinism, Psychiatry and Place

Background and Aims:
We review genetic determinism and highlight how our earlier research on psychoanalysis and the philosophy of place (see Gildersleeve, Crowden, 2018) can contribute to a better understanding of its relationship to psychiatry.

Methods:
We show how integrating place with psychoanalysis can undermine any philosophy of genetic determinism. We achieve this by demonstrating the prevalence of genetic determinism in the media, education and in debates on genetic modification. We also utilise research on the film GATTACA to conceptualise how place and genetic determinism contrast and why place coupled with psychiatry are an important antagonist to the ideology of genetic determinism.

Results:
By using our philosophy of place, our investigation highlights how psychiatry can contribute to a call for humanity to turn toward a 'collective being-at-home-in-the-world', instead of being estranged from place which the rhetoric of genetic determinism unconsciously but actively promotes.

Conclusions:
Our examination intends to integrate psychiatry into ongoing discussions about genetic determinism as they play out in the media, education and influence discrimination. We show something that has not been considered before. Specifically, our philosophy of place combined with psychoanalytic principles shows the potentially dangerous implications of genetic determinism. Fundamentally, we argue that genetic determinism leads to mental illness through the formation of psychopathological obstructive complexes because an individual is estranged from their authentic place in the world. We show the media and educational programs plays an important role in this and why scholars in these areas should consider place and genetic determinism alongside psychiatry in their future theoretical and practical endeavours.

Unpublished Poster submission.