Between the conventional stages and the post-conventional Levels 5 and 6, there is a
transitional stage. Some college-age students who come to see conventional morality as
socially constructed, thus, relative and arbitrary, but have not yet discovered universal
ethical principles, may drop into a hedonistic ethic of "do your own thing." This was well
noted in the hippie culture of the l960's. Disrespect for conventional morality was especially
infuriating to the Stage 4 mentality, and indeed was calculated to be so. Kohlberg found
that some people get "stuck" in this in-between stage marked by egoism and skepticism,
never able to completely leave behind conventional reasoning even after recognizing its
inadequacies. Such people are often marked by uncritical cynicism ("All politicians are
crooks…nothing really matters anyway"), disillusionment and alienation.
In What is Mental Illness Andreasen lays out the four major syndromes of mental illness. Keep your eyes open for how they can shade into each other: how symptoms of one can mimic symptoms of another, or how two syndromes might coexist simultaneously. Along with chapters 8 and 9, chapter 5, What is the Brain, is the core of the book. Andreasen reviews both the structural organization of the brain (what's on top, what's more primitive) and the neurochemical basis of activity in the brain (how neurons signal each other). The chapters on diagnosis are fascinating, and important to psychiatric practice, but not crucial for our purposes.
Chapters 8 and 9 (on treatment and research respectively) are where you will find the biological stories for each of the syndromes laid out in exquisite detail (exquisite for an introductory level, that is). Here is the Cliff Notes version of what you will need for the take home exams. But remember that you need to understand two previous chapters to get the most out of these: the chapters on the major syndromes and the chapter on the brain.
We will be talking about these physical explanations for mental illness in terms of levels of explanation. There are several physical levels of explanation. There is a physics level explanation of how protein binds to receptor cells. There is a chemical level explanation of how certain agents block certain neurotransmitters. And there is an anatomical level of explanation about what place in the brain controls which behaviors. But levels go beyond the physical too. Mental