Psychiatric Genetics

Psychiatric Genetics: Styles of Thought in Psychiatric Genetics offers a detailed exploration of the ways in which promissory science copes with the increasing scale and expectations of genomic research.

Psychiatric genetics has emerged from several distinct styles of scientific reasoning that can be traced historically to reveal, among other things, a range of practices that maintain an extraordinary stability in the face of radical criticism, internal tensions and scientific disappointments.

Psychiatric Genetics: Styles of Thought in Psychiatric Genetics develops a sociological approach and reveals the ways in which the aggregation of styles of reasoning can lead to significant changes in the division of labour, the distribution of scientific reward, and the negotiation of trust in scientific collaboration. The book demonstrates how large scale discovery science is ultimately eroding the preferred style of reasoning within molecular psychiatry.

The book draws on a variety of methods and materials to explore and sustain these claims. Combining a genealogical analysis of historical literature, rhetorical analysis of scientific review articles, interviews with scientists, ethnographic observations of laboratory practices and international conferences, this edited collection offers a detailed exploration of both local and global changes in the field of psychiatric genetics.

Michael Arribas-Ayllon is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. His research interests are in the sociology of genetic knowledge, histories of biomedicine, applications of genetic testing, medical communication, and professional decision making.

Andrew Bartlett is a sociologist working at the University of York and the University of Sheffield. He has a longstanding interest in the sociology of ‘Big Biology’ and has written papers on a range of topics in the sociology of science, including the interdisciplinarity of bioinformatics, the organisation and publics of psychiatric genetics, and social issues with regard to genome editing.

Jamie Lewis is a Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. His research interests coalesce around the sociology of science and technology studies (STS), public understanding of science (PUS) and medical sociology. He has published papers on bioinformatics, psychiatric genetics, stem cell research and public engagement.