Revision of Antoni Kępiński's concept of information metabolism.

Abstract

Information metabolism is a key model for describing psychiatric life in the works of a Polish psychiatrist, Antoni Kępiński. Due to the significance of Kępiński's writings on the psychiatric environment in Poland, and also its influence on the cultural life, a significant interpretative trend of this concept was subject to a critical analysis, a trend which relies on identifying information metabolism with the so-called biological model. The biological model is a postulate appearing in Kępiński's writings to describe issues concerning psyche in analogy to the somatic structures of an organism, especially the biology of a cell. This fragment of Kępiński's work was the main reason for his subsequent criticism. This article proves that the concept of information metabolism itself does not include the biological model. Eventually, an example has been provided to show the topicality of the system of Kępiński's information metabolism in relation to the concept of somatic markers of Antonio Damasio.