Some ideas return after the briefest of exiles: reductionism is back in vogue. Existential questions - about who we are, about our origins and future, about what is valuable - no longer require difficult soul searching, especially when straightforward answers are expected from the neurosciences. History is being rewritten with the brain as its centrepiece; the search for great men and big ideas...

I review the development of the new set of MMPI-2 scales, the Restructured Clinical (RC) Scales (Tellegen et al., 2003). I identify several conceptual and methodological flaws in the construction of these scales, and I discuss the influence of a central shortcoming, the use of an atypical and depressively biased marker for unwanted ("first-factor") variance and its consequences for the RC Scale...

The evidence for viral infections as a cause of anxiety, depression and fatigue is reviewed. It is argued that in order to fully understand any proposed relationship the effects of psychosocial factors on immunity, convalescence and illness behaviour must be acknowledged.

El objetivo de este artículo es analizar el modo en que los médicos Buenos Aires describieron a fines del siglo XIX las afecciones nerviosas por ese entonces eran colocadas la categoría neurosis. Se deja constancia un primer período, durante cual enfermedades neuróticas carecían autonomía mórbida. Luego, hacia 1890, se difunden concepciones según cuales esas dolencias consecuencia vida agitada ...