Why not be pluralists about explanatory reduction?

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Tabb
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Network Structures ◽  
Brain Disorders ◽  
Critical Attention

AbstractBorsboom et al. convincingly argue that, from their symptom network perspective, mental disorders cannot be reduced to brain disorders. While granting that network structures exist, I respond that there is no reason to think they are the only psychiatric phenomena worth explaining. From a pluralist perspective, what is required is not a full-scale rejection of explanatory reductionism but a critical attention to the circumstances of its application.

Brain disorders? Not really: Why network structures block reductionism in psychopathology research

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denny Borsboom ◽  
Angélique O. J. Cramer ◽  
Annemarie Kalis
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Clinical Psychology ◽  
Network Models ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Network Structures ◽  
Common Cause ◽  
Biological Basis ◽  
Holistic Research

AbstractIn the past decades, reductionism has dominated both research directions and funding policies in clinical psychology and psychiatry. The intense search for the biological basis of mental disorders, however, has not resulted in conclusive reductionist explanations of psychopathology. Recently, network models have been proposed as an alternative framework for the analysis of mental disorders, in which mental disorders arise from the causal interplay between symptoms. In this target article, we show that this conceptualization can help explain why reductionist approaches in psychiatry and clinical psychology are on the wrong track. First, symptom networks preclude the identification of a common cause of symptomatology with a neurobiological condition; in symptom networks, there is no such common cause. Second, symptom network relations depend on the content of mental states and, as such, feature intentionality. Third, the strength of network relations is highly likely to depend partially on cultural and historical contexts as well as external mechanisms in the environment. Taken together, these properties suggest that, if mental disorders are indeed networks of causally related symptoms, reductionist accounts cannot achieve the level of success associated with reductionist disease models in modern medicine. As an alternative strategy, we propose to interpret network structures in terms of D. C. Dennett's (1987) notion ofreal patterns, and suggest that, instead of being reducible to a biological basis, mental disorders feature biological and psychological factors that are deeply intertwined in feedback loops. This suggests that neither psychological nor biological levels can claim causal or explanatory priority, and that a holistic research strategy is necessary for progress in the study of mental disorders.

Are Mental Disorders Brain Disorders?

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 185-201
Author(s):  
Callie Joubert
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Brain Disorders ◽  
Category Mistake ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
The U.S

The mission of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health is to transform understanding and treatment of mental disorders. According to its former director, Dr. Thomas Insel, fundamental to its mission is the proposition that “mental illnesses are brain disorders.” The aim of this article is to examine this proposition and to argue that it does not make sense. As a scientific proposition, it is based on contentious empirical claims, and as a metaphysical proposition, it is consistent with those who claim that a person is a brain. A conceptual analysis is employed as a tool to show that it is a category mistake to ascribe psychological properties of a person to a brain. The article concludes with a brief indication of the ethical implications of Insel’s proposition for mental health care.

scholarly journals Neuroscience and the future for mental health?

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Rose
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Living Organism ◽  
Brain Disorders ◽  
Diagnostic Systems ◽  
Social Adversity ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Brain

Psychiatry is in one of its regular crises. It is a crisis of its diagnostic systems despite – perhaps because – of the recurrent claims about the extent of diagnosable ‘brain disorders’. It is a crisis of its explanatory systems despite – perhaps because – of its current wager on the brain as the ultimate locus for explanations of mental disorders. It is a crisis of its therapeutic capacities despite – perhaps because – more and more people are making use of its primary mode of intervention focussed on the brain – psychiatric drugs. In this editorial, I will suggest that this triple crisis of diagnosis, explanation and therapeutics arises from the dominant reductionist approaches to the role of neurobiology in psychiatry that priorities the analysis of brain mechanisms, at the expense of an understanding of the whole living organism in its milieu, and the processes which social experience shapes neurobiology from the moment of conception if not before. I shall suggest a different approach that starts from the experience of persons coping with adversity in their forms of life. This approach does not require giving up on our search for plausible explanations of mental health problems that engage neurobiological mechanisms, but it begins from a commitment to understanding, and hence intervening in, the ways in which social adversity shapes and blights the lives of so many of our fellow citizens.

scholarly journals ON MENTAL ILLNESS AND BROKEN BRAINS

Think ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (58) ◽  
pp. 103-112
Author(s):  
Anneli Jefferson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Brain Cancer ◽  
World View ◽  
Brain Diseases ◽  
Brain Disorders ◽  
Empirical Question ◽  
The Brain

ABSTRACTWe often hear that certain mental disorders are disorders of the brain, but it is not clear what this claim amounts to. Does it mean that they are like classic brain diseases such as brain cancer? I argue that this is not the case for most mental disorders. Neither does the claim that all mental disorders are brain disorders follow from a materialist world-view. The only plausible way of understanding mental disorders as brain disorders is a fairly modest one, where we label brain differences we find in mental illness as pathological based on their link to mental dysfunction. How many mental disorders will turn out to be brain disorders on this understanding is an empirical question.

scholarly journals Penerapan Terapi Psikoreligius : Zikir Terhadap Tanda dan Gejala Serta Kemampuan Mengatasi Halusinasi

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-26
Author(s):  
Madepan Mulia Madepan ◽  
Julita Sari ◽  
Dewi Damayanti
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Community Health ◽  
Health Center ◽  
Community Health Center ◽  
Signs And Symptoms ◽  
Auditory Hallucinations ◽  
Brain Disorders ◽  
Thought Processes ◽  
Hearing Voices ◽  
Schizophrenic Patients

Introduction: Mental disorders are brain disorders characterized by disruption of emotions, thought processes, behavior and perceptions. Auditory hallucinations are hearing voices or noises in the form of less loud noises to clear words talking about the client, even to a complete conversation between two or more people where the client is told to do something that is sometimes dangerous. Useful Aim: This study aims to see the signs and symptoms of auditory hallucinations and the ability to overcome hallucinations in schizophrenic patients after being given psychoreligious therapy: dhikr in the Abung Kunang Community Health Center, North Lampung Regency. Research Methods: Using the method of giving nursing actions in the form of psychoreligious therapy: remembrance of 2 schizophrenic patients who experienced auditory hallucinations nursing problems. Reported in the form of case studies. Results: The results obtained were a decrease in signs and symptoms of hallucinations and an increase in the patient's ability to cope with hallucinations. Suggestion: Nurses are expected to provide the optimal application of psychoreligious therapy: dhikr to patients who have auditory hallucinations nursing problems.

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