What is it about?
This monograph develops a model of what the concept of mental disorder looks like if we start with a certain set of assumptions about the nature of the mind. These starting assumptions are based on current ideas in neuroscience and philosophy of mind. They are that: 1) The mind is embodied. It is not separate to the brain and body, but is something that the brain and body are doing. 2) The mind is embedded in a physical and socio-cultural context. Thoughts, behaviors, and emotions are all deeply related to a persons context and history. 3) The mind is 'enacted' - i.e., it is an ongoing process of making meaning that unfolds as a person develops in and navigates the world. Building from these assumptions, this monograph argues that mental disorders are best understood as complex patterns in our processes of making sense of and acting in the world. These patterns in our 'sense-making' work against our interests in surviving and living a valued life, yet for various reasons we get stuck in them. It is suggested that one key reason we get stuck is that, in the context of our environments and histories and underpinned by a complex network of biopsychosocial causes , these patterns are often circular/self-reinforcing in some way. Thus, rather that represented a single underlying dysfunction in our thinking or biology, mental disorders emerge as complex patterns of dysfunctional sense-making.
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Why is it important?
The general public is often surprised to find that psychiatry, clinical psychology, and other fields that seek to understand mental illnesses, all feature a lot of disagreement about what a mental disorder even is. These disagreements appear to be related to deeper seated disagreements about what 'the mind' is and how it works. For example, if you think that the mind is simply 'computed' in the brain, then it seems plausible that mental illness might be sort of like a computer virus or coding error. If however you think that we are deeply cultural beings shaped by society, then you might be more open to the idea that mental illnesses are imperfect human labels invented by society. This monograph pulls together an understanding of mental disorder that integrates threads of truth from such diverse perspective. This approach, and the wider movement of 'enactive psychiatry' of which it is a part, plausibly represents a more integrated conceptual future for the study and treatment of mental health problems.
Perspectives
This monograph decontextualizes and extends my PhD thesis published in 2020. Written in my own time, it summarizes a number of years of both academic work and clinical reflection, and is my contribution to the emerging field of enactive psychiatry. I hope it will be of use and interest, not just to researchers working in this field, but for clinicians and students looking for a more integrative conceptual understanding of mental disorders. In the penultimate chapter for example, I attempt to collide these somewhat philosophical ideas with the practical task of explanation/clinical formulation. I have been blown away by the positive feedback that this book has received from authors that I still can't believe have read my work. I hope that people will find it useful!
Dr Kristopher Nielsen
Victoria University of Wellington
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Embodied, Embedded, and Enactive Psychopathology, January 2023, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-29164-7.
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