Affectivity in mental disorders: an enactive-simondonian approach

Abstract

Several enactive-phenomenological perspectives have pointed to affectivity as a central aspect of mental disorders. Indeed, from an enactive perspective, sense-making is an inherently affective process. A question remains on the role of different forms of affective experiences (i.e., existential feelings, atmospheres, moods, and emotions) in sense-making and, consequently, in mental disorders. This work elaborates on the enactive perspective on mental disorders by attending to the primordial role of affectivity in the self-individuation process. Inspired by Husserl’s genetic methodology and Simondonian philosophy of individuation, sense-making is described as the process of progressive concretization and structuration of the self-world structures that support the intentionality of conscious experiences. Accordingly, affectivity is described as the force that anticipates a partial self-world coherence in sense-making. Structurally different types of affective experiences are integrated into the genetic picture and, on this basis, a reinterpretation and classification of certain mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, depression, and the anxiety spectrum, is provided. In this way, this work contributes to a phenomenologically informed enactive account of mental disorders as disorders of affectivity.

Irruption and Absorption: A ‘Black-Box’ Framework for How Mind and Matter Make a Difference to Each Other

“…The concept of absorption of physiological activity is overly crude at the moment, as it encompasses everything from how the world impacts us effectively to how making contact with an object contributes to veridical perception. These absorption processes could be differentiated into a hierarchy of nested timescales [65], which unfold in a circular fashion [66].…”