7 / 7
Notes:
conference
series LLC Ltd
August 27-29, 2018 | Paris, France
JOINT EVENT
Page 38
Global Summit on
Traditional & Restorative Medicine
10
th
World Congress on
Neuropharmacology
Volume 7
Traditional and Restorative Medicine & Neuropharmacology 2018 | August 27-29, 2018
Journal of Traditional Medicine & Clinical Naturopathy | ISSN : 2573-4555
Yacov Rofé, J Tradit Med Clin Natur 2018, Volume:7
DOI: 10.4172/2573-4555-C1-001
The intuitive rational-choice theory of madness: Schizophrenia, criminal insanity and
neuroses; the fallen empires of psychoanalysis, medical models and drug companies
T
he book, The Intuitive Rational-Choice Theory: Schizophrenia, Criminal Insanity and
Neuroses, presents a new theory which explains the development and treatment of
schizophrenia and criminal insanity as rational coping mechanisms. Based on the strong
relationships between schizophrenia and neurological impairments, medical models took for
granted that all cases of schizophrenia result from neurological impairments, even when there
was no evidence, as in the case the Unabomber and John Nash. The new theory, termed also
Psych-Bizarreness Theory, demonstrates that it can explain all cases of schizophrenia, regardless
whether they suffer from neurological damages or not, as well as criminal insanity and neurotic
disorders, by conscious-rational terms. According to the new theory, when individuals are
confronted with extreme levels of stress, irrespective of whether the source of the stress is
neurological or environmental, their behavioral options become limited: They can commit
suicide, develop a drug abuse, use aggression to eliminate the stressor, or intuitively choose
certain mad/bizarre behaviors diagnosed by five empirical criteria (Rofé, 2000, 2016), that suite
their coping demands. Madness is seen primarily as a repressive coping mechanism, which
individuals intuitively choose when confronted with unbearable levels of stress. Thus, contrary
to psychoanalysis, madness cause repression rather than vice versa. The choice of a specific mad
behavior is determined by the same three principles which guide the consumer's decision-making
process when purchasing a certain product. The major principal is the need controllability: The
specific mad behavior must increase the patient's ability to exercise control over the stressor and\
or provide certain desired privileges. The second guiding principle is availability: The choice of
the specific symptom is affected by various channels of information, such as the media, personal
experiences, genetic predispositions, family and peers that increase the saliency of certain
suitable behaviors. The third principle is cost-benefit analysis: The mad behavior is chosen only
if the individual intuitively feels that it will reduce the level of his or her emotional distress.
Although the decision to implement the intuitive/unconscious choice is conscious, patients
become unaware of the Knowledge of Self-Involvement (KSI) through a variety of cognitive
processes that disrupt the encoding of this knowledge and a number of memory inhibiting
mechanisms that cause its forgetfulness. Subsequently, utilizing their socially internalized
beliefs regarding the causes of psychological disorders, patients develop a self-deceptive belief
which attributes the cause of their symptoms to factors beyond their conscious control. The
new theory proved its ability to integrate all therapeutic methods pertaining to neurosis into
one theoretical framework (Rofé, 2010), explaining all data relevant to the development and
treatment of conversion disorder, including neurological findings, which seemingly support the
medical explanation of this disorder (Rofé & Rofé, 2013), and resolves the theoretical confusion
regarding the explanation of phobia by distinguishing between bizarre (e.g., agoraphobia and
chocolate phobia) and non-bizarre phobia, such as dog phobia (Rofé, 2015). Robert Aumann,
the Nobel Prize-winning Economist, noted in a letter of recommendation to publishers of the
present book (2017), Rofé's theory is as "revolutionary as it sounds, fits well into the frameworks
of economics, game theory, and evolution"
.
Biography
Yacov Rofé is a professor of psychology at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel. He completed his first and
second degrees in psychology at Bar-Ilan University and received his PhD from Hull University, England, in 1973.
He held the position of chair of the interdisciplinary department of social sciences at Bar-Ilan University for fifteen
years. Rofé was a visiting professor at both Rutgers Medical School in New Jersey and Washington University in
St. Louis, Missouri. He has published many articles in leading academic journals of psychology, including a theory
entitled “Stress and Affiliation: a Utility Theory”, published by Psychological Review in 1984. An additional influential
article, published in Review of General Psychology, 2008, is a review that refutes the existence of repression and
the Freudian Unconscious.
jacov.Rofe@biu.ac.ilYacov Rofé
Bar-Ilan University, Israel