Psychiatry and the history of the localization of psychological functions

The problem of the localisation of mental functions in the brain is historically analysed with special attention to its implications for psychiatry. The aim is not to discuss the historical details of the relationship between psychiatric models of madness and neurological models of brain functioning, but to cast some light on the broad intellectual and social framework within which the relationship became possible in the first place. It is argued that debates about the localizability of psychological processes are always more than just debates about structure-function correlation, and must in fact be ultimately understood as part of the much larger historical attempt within the natural sciences to "naturalize" man and his mind. Emphasis is laid on the extent to which different positions within the localisation debate have been influenced by unspoken social (political, religious) and philosophical factors, and questions are raised about the implications of this fact for modern neuropsychology and neuropsychiatry.