Author:
Gregg R. Henriques - University of Pennsylvania
Author
Note:
Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed
to Gregg Henriques, Ph.D., Science Center Room 2029, 3535
Market St., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-2648;
E-mail: henri@landru.cpr.upenn.edu.
Abstract:
Wakefield's Harmful Dysfunction Analysis (HDA) for distinguishing
disorders from nondisorders has received much attention in
the literature. Although the analysis has many strengths,
Wakefield (1999a, 1999b) fails to appropriately capture the
nature of the disorder construct, thereby leading to much
confusion. A solution is offered suggesting that disorder
can be thought of as a utilitarian construct. When viewed
in this light, the HDA offers an excellent and useful definition
of disease for medicine. However, the HDA fails as a useful
definition for mental disorders because it contains a greedily
reductionistic error that suggests that all mental disorders
are reducible to biological theory. An alternative way of
conceptualizing mental disorders is offered and it is suggested
that the HDA's success in defining disease provides an important
piece that allows mental health scientists both begin to answer
which mental disorders are akin to medical diseases and which
mental disorders are not.
