Psychosomatics: a current overview

The term 'psychosomatic' has typically defined a series of illnesses in which somatic injury breaks out from psychic conflict not recognized as such. Currently, health is considered the only psychosomatic state of integration of mind and soma: an ideal state of integration. Somatic pathology is an effect of mind/body splitting. In the heterogeneous 'field of psychosomatics' interaction between psyche and soma ranges from classical psychosomatic illness to sporadic episodes in which the body has responded to an inability to process mental conflict. The author briefly reviews the development of psychoanalytic thought on psychosomatics in Argentina. He suggests the need to find appropriate conceptual tools to approach the mental structure underlying this pathology. He presents his ideas about the mental functioning of patients with somatization disorders. He introduces the concept of somatic event as a restitution phenomenon through which the subject attempts to re-establish self-integration and links with reality. He also offers some reflections on temporality and on changes in psychoanalytic technique with these patients. A clinical case illustrates his ideas.     

CAUSALITY, INTENSIONALITY AND IDENTITY: MIND BODY INTERACTION IN SPINOZA

According to Spinoza mental events and physical events are identical. What makes Spinoza's identity theory tempting is that it solves the problem of mind body interaction rather elegantly: mental events and physical events can be causally related to each other because mental events are physical events. However, Spinoza seems to deny that there is any causal interaction between mental and physical events. My aim is to show that Spinoza's apparent denial of mind body interaction can be reconciled with the identity theory. I argue that Spinoza had both an extensional and an intensional concept of cause and when Spinoza seems to deny mind body interaction he is having in mind the intensional concept of cause. This intensional concept of cause corresponds to that of causal explanation. I will argue that Spinoza anticipated Donald Davidson's view that even though mental events cannot be explained by referring to physical events and vice versa, mental and physical events are causally related to each other.     

Mind and space: a Confucian perspective

This essay explores the Confucian concept of the space of the mind and the Confucian view on cultivation of the space of mind. It then argues that the distinction between the mind as a mental substance and the body as a material substance is that the mind can be infinitely extended while the body can only extended to a certain limit.     

Shoemaker's Analysis of Realization: A Review

Sydney Shoemaker has been arguing for more than a decade for an account of the mind–body problem in which the notion of realization takes centre stage. His aim is to provide a notion of realization that is consistent with the multiple realizability of mental properties or events, and which explains: (i) how the physical grounds the mental; and (ii) why the causal work of mental events is not screened off by that of physical events. Shoemaker's proposal consists of individuating properties in terms of causal powers, and defining realization as a relation of inclusion between sets of causal powers. Thus, as the causal powers that define a mental property are a subset of the causal powers that characterize a physical property, it can be said that physical properties realize mental properties. In this paper we examine the physicalist credentials of Shoemaker's mind–body theory in relation to three important issues: the direction of the relation of dependence that the theory is committed to; the possibility of mental properties existing without being anchored by physical properties; and the compatibility of the theory with the causal closure of the physical world. We argue that Shoemaker's theory is problematic in all three respects. After that we consider whether the theory should count as a mind–body theory at all, given that it seems to be committed to a distorted view of mental properties.     

Some myths about ‘mental illness’

Radical psychiatrists and others assert that mental illness is a myth. The opening and closing portions of the paper deal with the impact such argument has had in law and psychiatry. The body of the paper discusses the five versions of the myth argument prevalent in radical psychiatry: (A) that there is no such thing as mental illness; (B) that those called ‘mentally ill’ are really as rational as everyone else, only with different aims; that the only reasons anyone ever thought differently was (C) because of unsophisticated category mistakes or (D) because of an adherence to the epistemology of a sick society; and (E) that the phrase ‘mental illness’ is used to mask value judgments about others’ behavior in pseudo‐scientific respectability. Reasons are given for rejecting each of these versions of the argument that mental illness is a myth.     

Towards an Expansive Hybrid Psychology: Integrating Theories of the Mediated Mind

This article develops an integrative theory of the mind by examining how the mind, understood as a set of skills and dispositions, depends upon four sources of mediators. Harré’s hybrid psychology is taken as a meta-theoretical starting point, but is expanded significantly by including the four sources of mediators that are the brain, the body, social practices and technological artefacts. It is argued that the mind is normative in the sense that mental processes do not simply happen, but can be done more or less well, and thus are subject to normative appraisal. The expanded hybrid psychology is meant to assist in integrating theoretical perspectives and research interests that are often thought of as incompatible, among them neuroscience, phenomenology of the body, social practice theory and technology studies. A main point of the article is that these perspectives each are necessary for an integrative approach to the human mind.     

Rudolph Hermann Lotze's philosophically informed psychology

This essay deals with four main topics: the notion of philosophical psychology; the idea that physical events and mental events cannot be compared to one another; psychophysical mechanism; and the theory of local signs. These are all key elements in the Medicinische Psychologie of Rudolph Hermann Lotze (1817‒1881). By philosophical psychology, Lotze understands not only the collection of experimental data regarding physiological and mental states but also their philosophical processing outlining an interpretation of the real nature of the mind‒body connection. Within this framework, Lotze introduces the psychophysical mechanism as based on a key philosophical idea: mind and body are incomparable, but, nevertheless, they are in reciprocal relation (Wechselwirkung). In virtue of said special relation, movements that take place in the mental sphere of reality are transferred or translated in the bodily sphere and vice versa. This rearrangement (Umgestaltung) from one sphere of reality to the other is termed by Lotze “transformation to equivalent.” Through the concept of equivalence, Lotze supports the idea that the mind and the body form an organic whole. However, psychophysical mechanisms should not be seen as not a fixed series of physical changes followed by an equally fixed series of mental changes: physical changes are “read,” organized, and then transformed by the mind into something purely mental. This, in turn, produces new mechanical force and more physical changes. Lotze's legacy and long-term impact is finally read against the background of his contributions.     

Mental illness,religion, and the rational mind: The case of Clifford W. Beers

This article focuses on the mental illness of Clifford W. Beers, who pioneered mental hospital reform in the United States in the early decades of the twentieth century, and the encouragement Beers received from William James in this endeavor. It argues that James supported Beers because he personally identified with the younger man's struggles with mental illness and with the high value that he placed on the vital importance of the rational mind in regaining one's sanity.     

Rethinking mind-body dualism: a Buddhist take on the mind-body problem

This paper is an effort to present the mind-body problem from a Buddhist point of view. Firstly, I show that the Buddhist distinction between mind and body is not absolute, but instead merely employed as a communicative tool to aid the understanding of human beings in a holistic light. Since Buddhism acknowledges a mind-body distinction only on a conventional level, it would not be fair to claim that the tradition necessarily advocates mind-body dualism. Secondly, I briefly discuss a response to Cartesian dualism from a Buddhist perspective and suggest that in this particular regard, the Buddhist approach may be likened to the ‘category mistake’ argument formulated by Gilbert Ryle. The fact that the Buddhist view does not accord with Cartesian dualism, however, does not imply that a monistic approach to the mind-body problem such as behaviourism, physicalism or biological naturalism is necessarily assumed. The Buddhist position could perhaps be best described as a middle way approach of ‘neither-duality-nor-identity’. Thirdly, I remain sceptical about the reductionist approach of accounting for mind merely on the level of brain or behaviour. In overlooking crucial ethical and axiological implications of mind, I argue that such an approach necessarily fails to impart a complete picture of mind. The Buddhist soteriological approach furthermore reveals certain law-like connections between mental attitudes and suffering which are for the most part overlooked in mainstream metaphysical explorations into the relation between mind and body. I thus endeavour to show why exploration into the link between mental phenomena, spiritual cultivation and the accumulation of karma is imperative to any comprehensive inquiry into the human mind.     

More than a body: mind perception and the nature of objectification

According to models of objectification, viewing someone as a body induces de-mentalization, stripping away their psychological traits. Here evidence is presented for an alternative account, where a body focus does not diminish the attribution of all mental capacities but, instead, leads perceivers to infer a different kind of mind. Drawing on the distinction in mind perception between agency and experience, it is found that focusing on someone's body reduces perceptions of agency (self-control and action) but increases perceptions of experience (emotion and sensation). These effects were found when comparing targets represented by both revealing versus nonrevealing pictures (Experiments 1, 3, and 4) or by simply directing attention toward physical characteristics (Experiment 2). The effect of a body focus on mind perception also influenced moral intuitions, with those represented as a body seen to be less morally responsible (i.e., lesser moral agents) but more sensitive to harm (i.e., greater moral patients; Experiments 5 and 6). These effects suggest that a body focus does not cause objectification per se but, instead, leads to a redistribution of perceived mind.     

Mental illness and the mind-brain problem: Delusion,belief and Searle's theory of intentionality

Until recently there has been little contact between the mind-brain debate in philosophy and the debate in psychiatry about the nature of mental illness. In this paper some of the analogies and disanalogies between the two debates are explored. It is noted in particular that the emphasis in modern philosophy of mind on the importance of the concept of action has been matched by a recent shift in the debate about mental illness from analyses of disease in terms of failure of functioning to analyses of illness in terms of failure of action. The concept of action thus provides a natural conduit for two-way exchanges of ideas between philosophy and psychiatry. The potential fruitfulness of such exchanges is illustrated with an outline of the mutual heuristic significance of psychiatric work on delusions and philosophical accounts of Intentionality.     

I think,therefore I am? Examining conceptions of the self,soul, and mind

In order to delineate among conceptions of the self, soul, and mind, participants reported where they believe these entities are located in the body and provided definitions of each entity. Results indicated that most people consider the self, soul, and mind localized in specific regions in the body. In contrast to previous research, however, some participants reported that the self is not centralized in one location. Participants tended to locate the self and mind in the head and the soul in the chest. The self and mind were commonly defined in mental terms and the soul as one’s essence. These results suggest that people tend to distinguish the soul from the mind, both in how they define each entity and where they locate them in the body. Although some people locate the soul in the same region as the self, most people more closely align the mind with the self.     

Mother-Infant Psychotherapy Informed by Polyvagal Theory

This article illustrates the psychotherapeutic treatment of a 2-month-old male experiencing separation distress and problems in his regulatory system that were influencing the relationship with his mother. The baby was the product of a pregnancy complicated by maternal mental illness, homelessness, alcohol and drug exposure, lack of prenatal care, and a complicated delivery that required a 12-day hospital stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The mother-infant psychotherapy was carried out over a two-year period and demonstrates the sensitive care needed when working with an overaroused and fearful baby and the critical ways that holding the mother in mind allows her in turn to hold her baby in mind. In this situation, the therapist provided an emotionally attuned interpersonal therapeutic relationship and created features of safety in the environment that helped develop new models of trust. We report here on an innovative program that provides health, mental health, onsite childcare, parenting education, and in-patient substance abuse services to mothers who are pregnant and/or parenting infants in the first three years of life. The specific purpose of the article is to discuss the mother-infant therapeutic treatment of a constitutionally challenged baby who was over aroused and fearful, and that we consider serves as an example for showing the favorable ways that holding the mother in mind free her to be emotionally available to the infant.     

PRIMITIVE MENTAL STATES AND THE BODY: A PERSONAL VIEW OF ARMANDO B. FERRARI'S CONCRETE ORIGINAL OBJECT

The author explores some psychoanalytic hypotheses about primitive mental states and their implications for a direct focus on body experience in clinical work. Some aspects of current clinical research about the patient's difficulty in achieving awareness of his emotional life as it emerges from object relations are presented, and this problem is viewed in connection with the relation of the analysand to his own body and to his capacity to pass through the different levels of mental elaboration, from motor discharge to abstraction. Ferrari's theories on the body—mind relationship are discussed and compared with the work of other authors. Ferrari calls the body the Concrete Original Object to indicate that it is the first source, differing from person to person, from which mental phenomena are generated and against which they are constantly measured. A clinical case serves as an illustration of the importance of the perception of the body for the birth of genuine, non-imitative mental activity.     

Grounding Causal Closure

What does it mean to say that mind‐body dualism is causally problematic in a way that other mind‐body theories, such as the psychophysical type identity theory, are not? After considering and rejecting various proposals, I advance my own, which focuses on what grounds the causal closure of the physical realm. A metametaphysical implication of my proposal is that philosophers working without the notion of grounding in their toolkit are metaphysically impoverished. They cannot do justice to the thought, encountered in every introductory class in the philosophy of mind, that dualism has a special problem accounting for mental causation.     

On Musical Cognition and Archaic Meaning Schemata

In clinical psychoanalytic work, one often encounters psychical material that is devoid of form or shape. This kind of material is often manifest as concrete somatic sensations on the border of the body and mind. At the same time, it is a primitive body-related self-experience that functions as a background, an essential requirement for more developed, differentiated self-experiences. Bi-logic is a theoretical method by which one can outline these early, partially formless processes and states of mind. This paper includes an overview of the main hypotheses of Matte Blanco's bi-logical vertex, which focuses on the extreme symmetrization of mental phenomena that emanate from the body. Clinical vignettes illustrate ways in which analysis can gradually bring forth such form from the previously formless, dissociated traumatic material into the range of the conscious mind. In this way, the capacity for thinking and reflection increases and the early elements of self-experience are enlivened.     

EMPIRICAL MINDFULNESS: TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE AND MENTAL HEALTH IN THE SCIENCE AND RELIGION DIALOGUE

As science and religion researchers begin to engage questions of mental health, mindfulness may prove to be a fruitful area of investigation. However, quantifying the physical effects of mindfulness on the brain is difficult because mindfulness deals with the problem of mental and physical interaction or, the mind/body problem. One system of understanding which may aid science and religion scholars in the pursuit of mindfulness is traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Within TCM, heart Qi manages the body's present connection to time and space. If the “being in the moment” is disrupted, then the heart Qi is blocked and mental illness or various neurological disorders occur. Succinctly, within TCM, mindfulness is understood as a nonphysical phenomenon (Qi) which directly affects physical systems, resulting in empirical data. This is tracked and treated through the TCM understanding of Qi. The TCM view of Qi in mental health may therefore provide a helpful new paradigm to investigations concerning mindfulness and the human brain.     

Marshaling administrative data to study the prevalence of mental illness in assault on law enforcement cases

A substantial body of literature has investigated many issues surrounding police encounters with persons with mental illness. This paper focuses on a specific type of encounter – individuals with mental illness charged with assaulting officers because of their behavior during a psychiatric crisis – and uses administrative data to examine its prevalence in one state. Results suggest that individuals with mental health histories comprise a small but meaningful percentage (c. 9%) of assault on law enforcement charges, and c. 10% of these charges have an offense date within 14 days of an emergency mental health custody order, increasing the likelihood that psychiatric symptoms influenced their behavior at the time of the offense. Further results describe different categories of relevant charges, charge classifications, final dispositions, and sentences. Results are discussed in the context of outcomes for persons with mental illness and law enforcement as well as the role and limitations of forensic mental health assessment in these cases. The paper concludes with a call for similar data collection across jurisdictions.     

Freud, evolution, and the tragedy of man

It is argued that Freud was not, as Sulloway (1979) contends, a "crypto-biologist" of the mind, but rather a cultural anthropologist of the mind. Freud's genetic conception of the psychic apparatus was neither exclusively nor critically derived from biology. Rather, it was based on an anthropogenetic approach to the archaic heritage of mind inspired in part by the moral philosophy of Nietzsche. The idea of tragedy was the unifying theme of Freud's cultural interpretation of evolutionary psychology. The historical search for the primal origins of neurosis led Freud to the unavoidable conclusion that neurosis was in the beginning a prehistoric moral dilemma which, over the course of mental evolution, eventually evolved into guilt, discontent, and neurosis as modern-day phylogenetically endowed facts of life. Freud (1930) made it clear that the source of man's biological and cultural evolutionary progress--self-denial--was also responsible for the tragedy of the human condition, namely, repression, eternal psychic ambivalence, and chronic mental illness. He believed that neurosis began, as Nietzsche (1887) exclaimed, with the "reduction of the beast of prey 'man' to a tame and civilized animal..." (p. 42). For both Freud and Nietzsche, the cause of the human tragedy was not merely the fall from Nature, but the inexorable knowledge that Man's denial of his biological heritage was the very basis for being human.     

Meditation and Health: The Search for Mechanisms of Action

Psychological interest in the impact of mental states on biological functioning is growing rapidly, driving a need for new methods for inducing mental states that last long enough, and are sufficiently impactful, to have significant effects on physical health. The many traditions of meditative practice are one potential pathway for studying mind‐body interactions. The purpose of this review is to introduce personality and social psychologists to the field of meditation research. Beginning with a brief introduction to meditation and the heterogeneity of meditative practices, we showcase research linking meditative practice to changes in immune and cardiovascular functioning and pain perception. We then discuss theoretical and empirical evidence that meditation works by inducing changes in psychological capacities such as emotion regulation and self‐regulation or through repeated induction of specific mental states such as love or meta‐cognitive awareness. At the frontier of the science of meditation is the need to empirically test whether meditation‐driven changes in cognitive and affective processes are the cause of improvements in physical health. Emerging challenges in meditation research include a need for large studies using randomized controlled and dual‐blind designs with active control groups and an increased focus on measuring mechanisms of action as well as outcomes. Meditation represents a potentially powerful tool for generating new knowledge of mind‐body interactions.