Philosophy of Psychiatry

The Missing Self in Hacking’s Looping Effects

by Serife Tekin

Forthcoming in Mental Kinds and Natural Kinds, Harold Kincaid and Jacqueline A. Sullivan, Eds. (MIT Press).

maladapting minds book review

by dieneke hubbeling

Establishing and Measuring Consciousness:

by stanley wilkin

A review of neurological investigations into consciousness and why the apprach is flawed. Weighing up several... more A review of neurological investigations into consciousness and why the apprach is flawed. Weighing up several propositions through current epistemology.

Is Pain Disorder a valid classification?

by Elisa Arnaudo

Program Erica Kandela a materializm nieredukcjonistyczny (Eric Kandel's intellectual framework for psychiatry and non-reductive materialism)

by Bartosz Janik

forthcoming, Zagadnienia Filozoficzne w Nauce 51(2012)

In this article I would like to analyze Eric Kandel's intellectual frameworks for psychiatry from non-reductive... more In this article I would like to analyze Eric Kandel's intellectual frameworks for psychiatry from non-reductive materialism's point of view. I would like to briefly introduce Kandel's program to establish its main features and then, after introducing various types of non-reductive materialism, try to focus on incorporation the philosophical view on purely scientific program. The main goal is to show that philosophical component is necessary for holistic approaches to philosophy of mind.

A Metacognitive Model of the Sense of Agency over Thoughts

by Glenn Carruthers

in press, in Cognitive Neuropsychiatry

Introduction: The sense of agency over thoughts is the experience of oneself qua agent of mental action. Those... more Introduction: The sense of agency over thoughts is the experience of oneself qua agent of mental action. Those suffering certain psychotic symptoms are thought to have a deficient sense of agency. Here I seek to explain this sense of agency in terms of metacognition.
Method: I start with the proposal that the sense of agency is elicited by metacognitive monitoring representations that are used in the intentional inhibition of thoughts. I apply this model to verbal hallucinations and the like and examine the plausibility of this model explaining deficits associated with these symptoms.
Results: By tying the sense of agency to metacognitive inhibition I propose that the loss of a sense of agency in certain psychotic symptoms is accompanied by a particular deficit in the patient’s ability to control their own thinking. This is consistent with the experiences of those at high risk of developing hallucinations, who report more intrusive thoughts than controls. The model I present is able to explain why those at risk of developing verbal hallucinations and those suffering from verbal hallucinations have deficits in the intentional inhibition of thought. I defend this account from a possible objection by distinguishing the form of the intentional inhibition deficit displayed by those suffering verbal hallucination from that displayed by those suffering from orbital-frontal cortex lesions and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Conclusion: A plausible hypothesis is that the sense of agency over thoughts is elicited by the metacognitive monitoring representation used to intentionally inhibit thoughts. The deficit in the sense of agency over thoughts associated with certain psychotic symptoms could be explained by a failure to properly metacognitively monitor certain thought processes.

Varieties of Temporal Experience in Depression

by Matthew Ratcliffe

Draft of a paper forthcoming in the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy

People with depression often report alterations in their experience of time, a common complaint being that time has... more People with depression often report alterations in their experience of time, a common complaint being that time has slowed down or stopped.  In this paper, I argue that depression can involve a range of qualitatively different changes in the structure of temporal experience, some of which I proceed to describe. In addition, I suggest that current diagnostic categories such as ‘major depression’ are insensitive to the differences between these changes. I conclude by briefly considering whether the kinds of temporal experience associated with depression are specific to depression.

The Phenomenology and Neurobiology of Moods and Emotions

by Matthew Ratcliffe

Proof version. Published in the Handbook of Phenomenology and Cognitive Science (Springer, 2010)

The Structure of Interpersonal Experience

by Matthew Ratcliffe

Penultimate draft. To be published in Phenomenology of Embodied Subjectivity, edited by Rasmus Jensen and Dermot Moran (Springer)

This paper sketches a phenomenological account of what it is to encounter someone as a person. I take, as a starting... more This paper sketches a phenomenological account of what it is to encounter someone as a person. I take, as a starting point, Sartre‟s view in Being and Nothingness that our sense of others involves a bodily response that is inextricable from a distinctive way of experiencing possibilities. I concede that Sartre‟s emphasis on the loss of possibilities is too restrictive, but defend this more general claim. In so doing, I consider alterations in the structure of interpersonal experience that can occur in psychiatric illness. These, I propose, are best interpreted as changes in a felt sense of possibility that is constitutive of our sense of others as persons.

Delusional Atmosphere and Delusional Belief

by Matthew Ratcliffe

Proof. Final version appeared in the Handbook of Phenomenology and Cognitive Science (Springer, 2010)

Existential Feeling and Psychopathology

by Matthew Ratcliffe

Proof version of a paper published in Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology (2009).

Bodily feelings are often construed as reports of internal bodily states. However, references to such feelings, both... more Bodily feelings are often construed as reports of internal bodily states. However, references to such feelings, both in everyday life and in the context of psychiatry, suggest that they also make a significant contribution to how things other than the body are experienced. This paper focuses on a class of feelings that I call ‘existential feelings’. They have neither the body nor an object or state of affairs outside of the body as their sole object. Rather, they are structures of relatedness between self and world, which comprise a changeable sense of ‘reality’, ‘situatedness’, ‘locatedness’, ‘connectedness’, ‘significance’ and so forth. I suggest that reflection upon the phenomenology of touch can serve to illuminate how something can be both a bodily feeling and a way of experiencing the world. In so doing, I criticise the sharp body-world distinction that permeates discussion of feeling. I appeal to descriptions of various pathological and non-pathological experiences to suggest that we should be wary of double-counting when it comes to feelings of the body and experiences of things outside of the body. In the case of existential feelings at least, the two are not distinct from each other but inextricable aspects of the same unitary experiential structure. Some ‘bodily feelings’ just are, I claim, ‘ways in which the world appears’.

Understanding Existential Changes In Psychiatric Illness: The Indispensability of Phenomenology

by Matthew Ratcliffe

This chapter makes a case for the view that phenomenological reflection is indispensable when it comes to interpreting... more This chapter makes a case for the view that phenomenological reflection is indispensable when it comes to interpreting at least some psychiatric conditions. It then goes on to show how phenomenological and neurobiological perspectives can be mutually informative. I begin by distinguishing ‘phenomenological’ from ‘psychological’ and ‘personal’ understanding. For the phenomenologist, a background sense of reality that is presupposed by both psychological and personal understanding is itself an object of enquiry. Given that many of the experiential changes reported in psychiatric illness involve alterations in the sense of reality, a ‘phenomenological stance’ is required in order to understand them. To illustrate this point, I sketch some of the existential changes (by which I mean alterations in the sense of reality and belonging) that can occur in depressive illness. In addition to arguing for the utility of a phenomenological stance, I suggest that some of the phenomenological analyses that are offered by Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and others can aid us in interpreting these changes.

Following this, I turn to the relationship between phenomenology and neuroscience. Any attempt to explore the neural correlates of a kind of experience will presuppose at least some appreciation of what the relevant experience involves, and misleading conceptions of experience can obfuscate scientific studies in a number of ways. I suggest that phenomenology can inform scientific enquiry by offering detailed accounts of the structure of experience that avoid certain commonplace confusions. I go on to argue that scientific work can also play a valuable role in clarifying and refining phenomenological claims. Amongst other things, scientific studies can generate conceptual distinctions that have the potential to inform phenomenological reflection. I conclude that, although interaction between these disciplines is mutually illuminating, the goal of ‘naturalising’ phenomenology through neurobiology is an untenable one. Neurobiology presupposes the experientially constituted sense of reality that phenomenology seeks to describe. So the fruits of phenomenological research cannot all be integrated into an objective, scientific account of neurobiological processes.

Interpreting Delusions

by Matthew Ratcliffe

This paper explores the phenomenology of the Capgras and Cotard delusions. The former is generally characterised as... more This paper explores the phenomenology of the Capgras and Cotard delusions. The former is generally characterised as the belief that relatives or friends have been replaced by impostors, and the latter as the conviction that one is dead or has ceased to exist. A commonly reported feature of these delusions is an experienced ‘defamiliarisation’ or even ‘derealisation’ of things, which is associated with an absence or distortion of affect. I suggest that the importance attributed to affect by current explanations of delusional experience can serve to make explicit the manner in which we ordinarily experience the world under a taken-for-granted aspect of affective familiarity. This implicit feeling is, I argue, partly constitutive of our sense of reality. However, so-called ‘folk psychology’, which is generally adopted by philosophers as an initial interpretive backdrop for delusional beliefs and for beliefs more generally, fails to accommodate it. As a consequence, some pervasive philosophical assumptions concerning the manner in which we experience and understand the world, ourselves and each other are called into question.

Heidegger's Attunement and the Neuropsychology of Emotion

by Matthew Ratcliffe

I outline the early Heidegger’s views on mood and emotion, and then relate his central claims to some recent finding... more I outline the early Heidegger’s views on mood and emotion, and then relate his central claims to some recent finding in neuropsychology. These findings complement Heidegger in a number of important ways. More specifically, I suggest that, in order to make sense of certain neurological conditions that traditional assumptions concerning the mind are constitutionally incapable of accommodating, something very like Heidegger’s account of mood and emotion needs to be adopted as an interpretive framework. I conclude by supporting Heidegger’s insistence that the sciences constitute a derivative means of disclosing the world and our place within it, as opposed to an ontologically and epistemologically privileged domain of inquiry.

The Feeling of Being

by Matthew Ratcliffe

This paper was published in the Journal of Consciuousness Studies in 2005. It's where I introduce the term "existential feeling", the topic of my 2008 book Feelings of Being.

There has been much recent philosophical discussion concerning the relationship between emotion and feeling. However,... more There has been much recent philosophical discussion concerning the relationship between emotion and feeling. However, everyday talk of ‘feeling’ is not restricted to emotional feeling and the current emphasis on emotions has led to a neglect of other kinds of feeling. These include feelings of homeliness, belonging, separation, unfamiliarity, power, control, being part of something, being at one with nature and ‘being there’. Such feelings are perhaps not ‘emotional’. However, I suggest here that they do form a distinctive group; all of them are ways of ‘finding ourselves in the world’. Indeed, our sense that there is a world and that we are ‘in it’ is, I suggest, constituted by feeling. I offer an analysis of what such ‘existential feelings’ consist of, showing how they can be both ‘bodily feelings’ and, at the same time, part of the structure of intentionality.

The Phenomenological Role of Affect in the Capgras Delusion

by Matthew Ratcliffe

This paper draws on studies of the Capgras delusion in order to illuminate the phenomenological role of affect in... more This paper draws on studies of the Capgras delusion in order to illuminate the phenomenological role of affect in interpersonal recognition. People with this delusion maintain that familiars, such as spouses, have been replaced by impostors. It is generally agreed that the delusion involves an anomalous experience, arising due to loss of affect. However, quite what this experience consists of remains unclear. I argue that recent accounts of the Capgras delusion incorporate an impoverished conception of experience, which fails to accommodate the role played by ‘affective relatedness’ in constituting (a) a sense of who a particular person is and (b) a sense of others as people rather than impersonal objects. I draw on the phenomenological concept of a horizon to offer an interpretation of the Capgras experience that shows how the content ‘this entity is not my spouse but an impostor’ can be part of the experience, rather than something that is inferred from a strange experience.

Depression, Guilt and Emotional Depth

by Matthew Ratcliffe

Proof version of a paper published in Inquiry (2010)

It is generally maintained that emotions consist of intentional states and/or bodily feelings. This paper offers a... more It is generally maintained that emotions consist of intentional states and/or bodily feelings. This paper offers a phenomenological analysis of guilt in severe depression, in order to illustrate how such conceptions fail to adequately accommodate a way in which some emotional experiences are said to be deeper than others. Many emotions are intentional states. However, I propose that the deepest emotions are not intentional but ‘pre-intentional’, meaning that they determine which kinds of intentional state are possible. I go on to suggest that pre-intentional emotions are at the same time feelings. In so doing, I reject the distinction that is often made between bodily feelings and the world-oriented aspects of emotion.

The Phenomenology of Mood and the Meaning of Life

by Matthew Ratcliffe

Proof. The final version appeared in the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, edited by Peter Goldie.

In his book The Passions, Robert Solomon proposed that emotions are ‘the meaning of life’. By this, he meant that they... more In his book The Passions, Robert Solomon proposed that emotions are ‘the meaning of life’. By this, he meant that they constitute the meanings in a life, frameworks of value and significance that are incorporated into the experienced world. I think there is something importantly right about his claim, and my aim in this chapter is to defend a somewhat revised version of it. I begin by outlining Solomon’s conception of emotion, focusing on the phenomenological role assigned to emotion, the distinction drawn between emotions and feelings, and the claim that moods are generalised emotions. I go on to argue that Solomon, like many others who have written on the emotions, misconstrues the phenomenology of mood. It is a background of feeling more often referred to as a ‘mood’ than as ‘emotion’ that plays the meaning-giving role emphasised by Solomon. Moods are not, as is often claimed, generalised emotions (intentional states that have the whole world or a substantial chunk of it as their object). In fact, they are not intentional states at all. Instead, they are part of the background structure of intentionality and are presupposed by the possibility of intentionally directed emotions. To illustrate this, I turn to Martin Heidegger’s phenomenological analysis of boredom and then to descriptions of altered mood in depression. In so doing, I draw a distinction between the intensity or strength of an emotional state and its depth. An emotion can be quite intense but at the same time shallow, whereas a phenomenologically inconspicuous mood can be deep precisely in virtue of its inconspicuousness. The greater depth of the mood, I suggest, consists its being responsible for a space of possibilities that object-directed emotions, however intense, presuppose. For example, to be able to experience fear, one must already find oneself in the world in such a way that being ‘endangered’ or ‘under threat’ are possibilities.

Having described the phenomenological role of moods, I go on to consider their nature. I argue that we experience the world through our feeling bodies, and that distinctions between internally directed bodily feelings and externally directed intentional states should be rejected. I distinguish between intentional and pre-intentional feelings, suggesting that most of those phenomena referred to as ‘emotions’ are comprised at least partly of the former, whereas those moods that constitute the experienced meaningfulness of the world consist entirely of pre-intentional feeling.

Depression and the Phenomenology of Free Will

by Matthew Ratcliffe

Draft of my contribution to the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Psychiatry

This chapter sketches a phenomenological account of impaired agency in depression. Depression, I suggest, can involve... more This chapter sketches a phenomenological account of impaired agency in depression. Depression, I suggest, can involve what we might call a diminished experience of free will. Although it is often assumed that we have such an experience, it is far from clear what it consists of. I argue that this lack of clarity is symptomatic of looking in the wrong place. Drawing on themes in Sartre‟s Being and Nothingness, I propose that the sense of freedom associated with action is not - first and foremost – an episodic „quale‟ or „feeling‟ that is experienced as internal to the agent. Rather, it is embedded in the experienced world; my freedom appears in the guise of my surroundings. This makes better sense of what people with depression consistently describe: a diminished ability to act that is inextricable from a transformation of the experienced world.
As well as illuminating an aspect of the experience of depression, I also seek to illustrate something more general: how phenomenology and psychiatry can interact in a fruitful way. Phenomenology supplies us with an interpretive framework through which to make sense of first-person reports of altered experience in psychiatric illness. In so far as it facilitates plausible interpretations of otherwise elusive phenomena, in a way that has potential repercussions for classification and treatment, it is vindicated in the process. In addition, the commerce between phenomenology and psychiatry can lead to further refinement of the former, rather than simply its uncritical application (Ratcliffe, 2008; Ratcliffe and Broome, forthcoming).

Belonging to the World through the Feeling Body

by Matthew Ratcliffe

Proof version of a response to commentaries on my paper 'Existential Feeling and Psychopathology'. Published in Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology (2009).