What Makes Delusions Pathological?

Bortolotti argues that we cannot distinguish delusions from other irrational beliefs in virtue of their epistemic features alone. Although her arguments are convincing, her analysis leaves an important question unanswered: What makes delusions pathological? In this paper I set out to answer this question by arguing that the pathological character of delusions arises from an executive dysfunction in a subject’s ability to detect relevance in the environment. I further suggest that this dysfunction derives from an underlying emotional imbalance—one that leads delusional subjects to regard some contextual elements as deeply puzzling or highly significant

Previše ili premalo? Poremećaji djelovanja na spektru

Disorders of agency could be described as cases where people encounter difficulties in assessing their own degree of responsibility or involvement with respect to a relevant action or event. These disturbances in one’s sense of agency appear to be meaningfully connected with some mental disorders and with some symptoms in particular—i.e. auditory verbal hallucinations, thought insertion, pathological guilt. A deeper understanding of these experiences may thus contribute to better identification and possibly treatment of people affected by such disorders. In this paper I explore disorders of agency to flesh out their phenomenology in more detail as well as to introduce some theoretical distinctions between them. Specifically, I argue that we may better understand disorders of agency by characterizing them as dimensional. In §1 I explore the cases of Auditory Verbal Hallucinations (AVH) and pathological guilt and I show that they lie at opposite ends of the agency spectrum (i.e. hypoagency versus hyperagency). In §2 I focus on two intermediate cases of hypo- and hyper- agency. These are situations that, despite being very similar to pathological ones, may be successfully distinguished from them in virtue of quantitative factors (e.g. duration, frequency, intensity). I first explore the phenomenon of mind wandering as an example of hypoagency, and I then discuss the phenomenon of false confessions as an example of hyperagency. While cases of hypoagency exemplify situations where people experience their own thoughts, bodies, or actions as something beyond their control, experiences of hyperagency provide an illusory sense of control over actions or events.Poremećaji djelovanja mogu se opisati kao slučajevi u kojima ljudi nailaze na teškoće u procjeni svojeg stupnja odgovornosti ili sudjelovanja u nekom djelovanju ili događaju. Ove se smetnje u nečijem osjećaju djelovanja čine na značajan način povezane s mentalnim poremećajima, a posebno s nekim simptomima – auditornim halucinacijama verbalnog tipa, umetanjem misli i patološkom krivnjom. Bolje shvaćanje ovih iskustava moglo bi poboljšati prepoznavanje, a možda i tretman ljudi koji pate od takvih poremećaja. U ovom članku proučavam poremećaje djelovanja kako bih detaljnije pojasnila njihovu fenomenologiju te između njih uvela neka teorijska razlikovanja. Konkretnije, tvrdit ću da ćemo poremećaje djelovanja možda moći bolje razumjeti ako ih okarakteriziramo kao dimenzionalne. U prvom dijelu proučavam slučajeve auditornih halucinacija verbalnog tipa (AVH) i patološke krivnje te pokazujem da leže na suprotnim krajevima spektra djelovanja (hipoagencija naspram hiperagencije). U drugom dijelu bavim se dvama međuslučajevima hipo i hiperagencije. Iako su vrlo slične patološkima, ove se situacije mogu uspješno razlučiti od njih na temelju kvantitativnih faktora (poput trajanja, frekvencije i intenziteta). Prvo istražujem fenomen lutanja misli kao primjer hipoagencije, a zatim razmatram fenomen lažnih ispovijesti kao primjer hiperagencije. Dok se slučajevi hipoagencije odnose na situacije u kojima ljudi osjećaju da su njihove misli, tijela i djelovanja izvan njihove kontrole, iskustva hiperagencije pružaju varljiv osjećaj kontrole nad djelovanjem i događajima

Posebno izdanje "Granice racionalnosti"

Introduction to the special issue of EuJAP "The Bounds of Rationality"Uvod u posebno izdanje EuJAP-a "Granice racionalnosti

Posebno izdanje "Granice racionalnosti"

Introduction to the special issue of EuJAP "The Bounds of Rationality"Uvod u posebno izdanje EuJAP-a "Granice racionalnosti

Correction to: Core Affect Dynamics: Arousal as a Modulator of Valence

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The Role of Inner Speech in Executive Functioning Tasks: Schizophrenia With Auditory Verbal Hallucinations and Autistic Spectrum Conditions as Case Studies

Several theories propose that one of the core functions of inner speech (IS) is to support subjects in the completion of cognitively effortful tasks, especially those involving executive functions (EF). In this paper we focus on two populations who notoriously encounter difficulties in performing EF tasks, namely, people diagnosed with schizophrenia who experience auditory verbal hallucinations (Sz-AVH) and people within the Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC). We focus on these two populations because they represent two different ways in which IS can fail to help in EF tasks, which can be illustrative for other mental conditions. First, we review the main components of EF (Section 1). Then we explain the functions that IS is taken to perform in the domain of EF (Section 2) and review the evidence concerning problems about EF in the two populations of our study: Sz-AVH (Section 3) and ASC (Section 4). After this we further detail our account about what a properly functioning IS can do for both populations and how different IS profiles may impact EF performance: in the case of Sz-AVH, the uncontrolled and intrusive character of IS negatively affects EF performance, whereas in ASC, EF is not sufficiently supported by IS, given the tendency in this population to present a diminished use of IS (Section 5). We finally briefly discuss Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Developmental Language Disorders (DLD

Therapy and conflict. Between pragmatism and psychoanalysis. Introduction to the Symposium

The history of the relationship between pragmatism and psychoanalysis is both complex and fragmentary. On the pragmatist side, the engagement with Sigmund Freud’s thought – and with the psychoanalytic tradition more generally – tends to be cursory, nonlinear, and at times slightly adversarial. For instance, William James notoriously rejects the unconscious as a concept and develops a different theory of the subconscious. Similarly, Charles S. Peirce frequently refers to the unconscious dimension of the mind, although he does so without referring to psychoanalysis. By contrast, both George Herbert Mead and John Dewey discuss the commonalities and differences between their own perspectives and the psychoanalytic one, but they fall short of doing so in detail. On the psychoanalytic side, the encounters are even more infrequent, with the exception of the pragmatist imprint in Harry Stack Sullivan’s work and the extensive references to William James in Carl Gustav Jung’s work. In some cases, pragmatists have been (wrongfully) accused by psychoanalysts of defending a naive – or at least overly optimistic – picture of the human condition

On the Brink of Disaster: Vulnerability to Mental Disorders

The notions of at-risk and subthreshold conditions are increasingly discussed in psychiatry to describe mild, brief, or otherwise atypical syndromes that fail to meet the criteria for clinical relevance. However, the concept of vulnerability is still underexplored in philosophy of psychiatry. This article discusses psychiatric vulnerability to clarify some conceptual issues about the various factors contributing to vulnerability, the notions of risk and protection, and the idea that there are multiple ways of crossing the threshold to clinical relevance. My goal is to lay the groundwork for a finer-grained discussion on psychiatric vulnerability that reflects the complex nature of mental conditions and illustrates the kind of thinking needed in clinical practice

Autistic camouflaging across the spectrum

Camouflaging may be characterized as a set of actions and strategies more or less consciously adopted by some autistic people to navigate the neurotypical social world. Despite the increased interest that this phenomenon has garnered, its nature remains elusive and in need of conceptual clarification. In this paper, we aim to put forward an inclusive view of camouflaging that does justice to its complexity while also reflecting the heterogeneity of autism as a condition. First, we offer an overview of the main characterizations of camouflaging. This overview shows that current characterizations fail to paint a cohesive picture, and that different accounts emphasize different aspects of the phenomenon. Second, we explore the analogy between camouflaging and passing, which we take to be illuminating to describe some forms of camouflaging, while probably obscuring the study of others. Third, we extend the discussion about camouflaging to currently understudied groups across the autistic spectrum – i.e., children, and adults with linguistic and/or intellectual disabilities. We argue that camouflaging in such groups may differ from what the current literature describes as typical instances of camouflaging. We conclude by revisiting the nature of camouflaging in light of such understudied groups, and we offer some suggestions on how to move research forward.We are grateful to Elena Castroviejo, Inge-Marie Eigsti, Marta Jorba, and Teresa Roversi for their valuable feedback on earlier versions of this paper. Conversations with Itziar Arbina and Oiane Musitu from the Landaberde Daycare Center were important in the development of our ideas concerning camouflaging in adults with verbal and intellectual difficulties. Earlier versions of this material were discussed at the Philosophy of Psychiatry Work in Progress at Lancaster University and at Lindy Lab seminars at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). We would also like to thank two anonymous referees of this journal for their constructive, encouraging, and engaging suggestions throughout the revision process

The Challenges Raised by Comorbidity in Psychiatric Research: The Case of Autism

Despite several criticisms surrounding the DSM classification in psychiatry, a significant bulk of research on mental conditions still operates according to two core assumptions: a) homogeneity, that is the idea that mental conditions are sufficiently homogeneous to justify generalization; b) additive comorbidity, that is the idea that the coexistence of multiple conditions in the same individual can be interpreted as additive. In this paper we take autism research as a case study to show that, despite a plethora of criticism, psychiatric research often continues to operate in accordance with this model. Then we argue that such a model runs into problems once facts about comorbidity are taken into account. Finally, we offer some suggestions on how to tackle the challenge raised by comorbidity and its impact on heterogeneity. To do so, we explore transdiagnostic stratification accounts and network models to show that combining these approaches can move us in the right direction