Comparing Two Enactive Perspectives on Mental Disorder

Nielsen, Kristopher

doi:10.1353/ppp.2021.0028

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…It is fundamentally influenced by organizational approaches to biology, phenomenology, pragmatism, and dynamical systems theory ( Thompson, 2010 ; Di Paolo et al, 2017 , 2018 ; Fuchs, 2017 ; Gallagher, 2017 ; Varela et al, 2017 ). The application of enactive ideas to psychopathology and psychotherapy has a long-standing tradition ( Colombetti, 2013 ; Röhricht et al, 2014 ; Gallagher and Payne, 2015 ; Gallagher, 2018 ; de Haan, 2020 ; Maiese, 2022 ), and it is object of discussion in current academic debates (e.g., de Haan, 2021 ; Nielsen, 2021 ; García, 2022 ). Cognition, from an enactive perspective, is defined as s ense-making , which refers to the possibility of the living organism to meaningfully interact with the environment—which in the case of humans, is a socio-material environment—according to its own needs and goals.…”

Section: The Enactive Approach To Life and Mindmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enactive and simondonian reflections on mental disorders

García

Arandia

2022

Front. Psychol.

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As an alternative to linear and unidimensional perspectives focused mainly on either organic or psychological processes, the enactive approach to life and mind—a branch of 4-E (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended) cognitive theories—offers an integrative framework to study mental disorders that encompasses and articulates organic, sensorimotor, and intersubjective dimensions of embodiment. These three domains are deeply entangled in a non-trivial manner. A question remains on how this systemic and multi-dimensional approach may be applied to our understanding of mental disorders and symptomatic behavior. Drawing on Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of individuation (focusing particularly on the concepts of tension, metastability, and preindividual), we provide some enactive conceptual tools to better understand the dynamic, interactive, and multi-dimensional nature of human bodies in mental disorders and psychopathological symptoms. One of such tools cursiva is sense-making, a key notion that captures the relational process of generating meaning by interacting with the sociomaterial environment. The article analyzes five aspects related to sense-making: temporality, adaptivity, the multiplicity of normativities it involves, the fundamental role of tension, and its participatory character. On this basis, we draw certain implications for our understanding of mental disorders and diverse symptoms, and suggest their interpretation in terms of difficulties to transform tensions and perform individuation processes, which result in a reduction of the field of potentialities for self-individuation and sense-making.

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Section: The Enactive Approach To Life and Mindmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enactive and simondonian reflections on mental disorders

García

Arandia

2022

Front. Psychol.

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“…It is through diversity and dialogue that better frameworks will emerge. In this section we compare B&G's BPSM to one such developing alternative, the embodied, embedded, and enactive view of psychopathology (3EP) (Nielsen 2020(Nielsen , 2021Ward 2018, 2020). As we have mentioned earlier, B&G cite the 4E framework as inspiration for their own view of embodied agency, but there are substantial differences between their model and models of health and disease that have emerged from, identify with, and operate within the 4E tradition.…”

Section: Comparison With An Embodied Enactive Viewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To conserve space this summary has been extremely brief. For fuller accounts see: Nielsen (2020Nielsen ( , 2021, Ward (2018, 2020). For a complimentary perspective on mental disorder referred to as Enactive Psychiatry see: de Haan (2020aHaan ( , 2020bHaan ( , 2020c.…”

Section: Comparison With An Embodied Enactive Viewmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Engel to Enactivism

Aftab

Nielsen

2021

EuJAP

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In this article we offer a two-part commentary on Bolton and Gillett’s reconceptualization of Engel’s biopsychosocial model. In the first section we present a conceptual and historical assessment of the biopsychosocial model that differs from the analysis by Bolton and Gillett. Specifically, we point out that Engel in his vision of the biopsychosocial model was less concerned with the ontological possibility and nature of psychosocial causes, and more concerned with psychosocial influences in the form of illness interpretation and presentation, sick role, seeking or rejection of care, the doctor-patient therapeutic relationship, and role of personality factors and family relationships in recovery from illness, etc. On the basis of this assessment, we then question Bolton and Gillett’s restricted focus on accounting for biopsychosocial causal interactions. The second section compares Bolton and Gillett’s account with a recent enactivist account of mental disorder that tackles similar conceptual problems of causal interactions. Bolton and Gillett’s utilize elements of the 4E cognition, but they combine these proto-ideas with an information-processing paradigm. Given their explicit endorsement of 4E approaches to mind and cognition, we illustrate some key ways in which a more fleshed out enactive account, particularly one that doesn’t rely on notions of information-processing, differs from the account proposed by Bolton and Gillett.

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“…Enactivism focuses on the biologically constituted organism standing in relation to the world. Thus, to understand behavior, we need to consider the wider brain-body-environment system evolving over time (22)(23)(24)(25)(26). Another important facet of enactivism refers to the central role given to meaning and experience.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given the complexity that the enactive approach demands to be reckoned with, it has been argued that enactivism entails a kind of pluralism – that under an enactive understanding of psychiatry there should be many different legitimate ways to explain mental disorders ( 24 , 27 , 28 ). However, the kind of explanatory pluralism entailed by enactivism is different to the general explanatory pluralism discussed above, as we will develop.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From analytic to synthetic-organizational pluralisms: A pluralistic enactive psychiatry

et al. 2022

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IntroductionReliance on sole reductionism, whether explanatory, methodological or ontological, is difficult to support in clinical psychiatry. Rather, psychiatry is challenged by a plurality of approaches. There exist multiple legitimate ways of understanding human functionality and disorder, i.e., different systems of representation, different tools, different methodologies and objectives. Pluralistic frameworks have been presented through which the multiplicity of approaches in psychiatry can be understood. In parallel of these frameworks, an enactive approach for psychiatry has been proposed. In this paper, we consider the relationships between the different kinds of pluralistic frameworks and this enactive approach for psychiatry.MethodsWe compare the enactive approach in psychiatry with wider analytical forms of pluralism.ResultsOn one side, the enactive framework anchored both in cognitive sciences, theory of dynamic systems, systems biology, and phenomenology, has recently been proposed as an answer to the challenge of an integrative psychiatry. On the other side, two forms of explanatory pluralisms can be described: a non-integrative pluralism and an integrative pluralism. The first is tolerant, it examines the coexistence of different potentially incompatible or untranslatable systems in the scientific or clinical landscape. The second is integrative and proposes to bring together the different levels of understanding and systems of representations. We propose that enactivism is inherently a form of integrative pluralism, but it is at the same time a component of the general framework of explanatory pluralism, composed of a set of so-called analytical approaches.ConclusionsA significant number of mental health professionals are already accepting the variety of clinical and scientific approaches. In this way, a rigorous understanding of the theoretical positioning of psychiatric actors seems necessary to promote quality clinical practice. The study of entanglements between an analytical pluralism and a synthetic-organizational enactivist pluralism could prove fruitful.

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Comparing Two Enactive Perspectives on Mental Disorder

Cited by 12 publications

References 8 publications

Enactive and simondonian reflections on mental disorders

Enactive and simondonian reflections on mental disorders

From Engel to Enactivism

From analytic to synthetic-organizational pluralisms: A pluralistic enactive psychiatry

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