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2What's wrong with 'mental' disorders?Psychological Medicine. 2010.Commentary on the editorial by D Stein et al.'s "What is a Mental/Psychiatric Disorder? From DSM-IV to DSM-V".
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107Prediction-error and two-factor theories of delusion formation: Competitors or allies?In Niall Galbraith (ed.), Aberrant Beliefs and Reasoning, Psychology Press. pp. 34-54. 2014.The two-factor theory (Davies, Coltheart, Langdon & Breen 2001; Coltheart 2007; Coltheart, Menzies & Sutton 2010) is an influential account of delusion formation. According to the theory, there are two distinct factors that are causally responsible for delusion formation. The first factor is supposed to explain the content of the delusion, while the second factor is supposed to explain why the delusion is adopted and maintained. Recently, another remarkable account of delusion formation has been…Read more
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55If you did not care, you would not notice: recognition and estrangement in psychopathologyPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 14 (1): 39-42. 2007.Paper discussing the Capgras delusions
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141Mental illness as mental: a defence of psychological realismHumana Mente 3 (11): 25-44. 2009.This paper argues for psychological realism in the conception of psychiatric disorders. We review the following contemporary ways of understanding the future of psychiatry: (1) psychiatric classification cannot be successfully reduced to neurobiology, and thus psychiatric disorders should not be conceived of as biological kinds; (2) psychiatric classification can be successfully reduced to neurobiology, and thus psychiatric disorders should be conceived of as biological kinds. Position (1) can l…Read more
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6“Minimal self” locked into a model: exploring the prospect of formalizing intentionality in schizophreniaPhilosophical Psychology. forthcoming.Computational psychiatry is a quickly evolving discipline that aims to understand psychopathology in terms of computational, hence algorithmic processes. While cognitive phenomena, especially beliefs or ways of “reasoning”, can more easily be formalized, meaning re-described in mathematical terms and then entered computational models, there is speculation as to whether phenomenology might be formalizable too. In other words, there are speculations in terms of what aspects of the human experience…Read more
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4Psychiatry as a vocation: Moral injury, COVID-19, and the phenomenology of clinical practiceClinical Ethics 19 (2): 157-170. 2024.In this article, we focus on a particular kind of emotional impact of the pandemic, namely the phenomenology of the experience of moral injury in healthcare professionals. Drawing on Weber's reflections in his lecture Politics as a Vocation and data from the Experiences of Social Distancing during the COVID-19 Pandemic Survey, we analyse responses from healthcare professionals which show the experiences of burnout, sense of frustration and impotence, and how these affect clinicians’ emotional st…Read more
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1Conceptual and Ethical Issues in the Prodromal Phase of PsychosisIn K. W. M. Fulford, Martin Davies, Richard Gipps, George Graham, John Sadler, Giovanni Stanghellini & Tim Thornton (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy and psychiatry, Oxford University Press. 2013.Our focus in this chapter is to address some of the philosophical issues that arise in the scientific and clinical study of the prodromal phase of psychosis. We discuss issues from both metaphysics and philosophy of science as we all as those related to phenomenological approaches and clinical ethics. A clear challenge arises in considering how models of a continuum of psychosis and of schizophrenia as a neurodevelopmental disorder can be reconciled with a scientific understanding of the prodrom…Read more
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Beyond ’Salience’ and ’Affordance’: Understanding Anomalous Experiences of Significant PossibilitiesIn Sophie Archer (ed.), Salience: A Philosophical Inquiry, Routledge. 2022.
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11The complexity of brain disorders and the worldliness of mental disorders Are mental disorders brain disorders?, by Anneli Jefferson, Oxford, Routledge, 2022, 108 pp., £48.99, ISBN: 9780367421380 (review)Philosophical Psychology 37 (3): 736-740. 2024.In this recently published book, Jefferson provides a lucid and detailed examination of, and answer to, its provocative title. In doing so, the focus of Jefferson’s analysis is largely on what a br...
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23Finding order within the disorder: a case study exploring the meaningfulness of delusionsBJPsych Bulletin. 2021.Can delusions, in the context of psychosis, enhance a person’s sense of meaningfulness? The case described here suggests that, in some circumstances, they can. This prompts further questions into the complexities of delusion as a lived phenomenon, with important implications for the clinical encounter. While assumptions of meaninglessness are often associated with concepts of ’disorder’, ’harm’ and ’dysfunction’, we suggest that meaning can nonetheless be found within what is commonly taken to b…Read more
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2Charting New Phenomenological Paths for Empirical Research on Delusions: Embracing Complexity, Finding MeaningJAMA Psychiatry 78 (10): 1063-1064. 2021.
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94Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience: Philosophical Perspectives (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2009.Neuroscience has long had an impact on the field of psychiatry, and over the last two decades, with the advent of cognitive neuroscience and functional neuroimaging, that influence has been most pronounced. However, many question whether psychopathology can be understood by relying on neuroscience alone, and highlight some of the perceived limits to the way in which neuroscience informs psychiatry. Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience is a philosophical analysis of the role of neuroscience in th…Read more
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44The epistemic harms of empathy in phenomenological psychopathologyPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1-22. forthcoming.Jaspers identifies empathic understanding as an essential tool for grasping not the mere psychic content of the condition at hand, but the lived experience of the patient. This method then serves as the basis for the phenomenological investigation into the psychiatric condition known as ‘Phenomenological Psychopathology’. In recent years, scholars in the field of phenomenological psychopathology have attempted to refine the concept of empathic understanding for its use in contemporary clinical e…Read more
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563Stop, look, listen: The need for philosophical phenomenological perspectives on auditory verbal hallucinationsFrontiers in Human Neuroscience 7 1-9. 2013.One of the leading cognitive models of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) proposes such experiences result from a disturbance in the process by which inner speech is attributed to the self. Research in this area has, however, proceeded in the absence of thorough cognitive and phenomenological investigations of the nature of inner speech, against which AVHs are implicitly or explicitly defined. In this paper we begin by introducing philosophical phenomenology and highlighting its relevance to …Read more
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40Scientific misconduct from the perspective of research coordinators: a national surveyJournal of Medical Ethics 33 (6): 365-369. 2007.Objective: To report results from a national survey of coordinators and managers of clinical research studies in the US on their perceptions of and experiences with scientific misconduct.Methods: Data were collected using the Scientific Misconduct Questionnaire-Revised. Eligible responses were received from 1645 of 5302 surveys sent to members of the Association of Clinical Research Professionals and to subscribers of Research Practitioner, published by the Center for Clinical Research Practice,…Read more
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57Choosing death in depression: a commentary on ‘Treatment-resistant major depressive disorder and assisted dying’Journal of Medical Ethics 41 (8): 586-587. 2015.Schuklenk and van de Vathorst's paper is a very welcome addition to the literature on the assisted dying debate and will be of great interest to clinicians working in the field of mental health.1 Many psychiatrists will have had patients who have asked them to allow them to die, to desist in their efforts to prevent their suicide, and one of us has had personal experience, outside of professional life, of being asked to aid in someone's attempt to end their life in the context of an episode of m…Read more
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167Delusional beliefs and reason givingPhilosophical Psychology 21 (6): 801-21. 2008.Philosophers have been long interested in delusional beliefs and in whether, by reporting and endorsing such beliefs, deluded subjects violate norms of rationality (Campbell 1999; Davies & Coltheart 2002; Gerrans 2001; Stone & Young 1997; Broome 2004; Bortolotti 2005). So far they have focused on identifying the relation between intentionality and rationality in order to gain a better understanding of both ordinary and delusional beliefs. In this paper Matthew Broome and I aim at drawing attenti…Read more
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110Delusions and Responsibility for Action: Insights from the Breivik CaseNeuroethics 7 (3): 377-382. 2014.What factors should be taken into account when attributing criminal responsibility to perpetrators of severe crimes? We discuss the Breivik case, and the considerations which led to holding Breivik accountable for his criminal acts. We put some pressure on the view that experiencing certain psychiatric symptoms or receiving a certain psychiatric diagnosis is sufficient to establish criminal insanity. We also argue that the presence of delusional beliefs, often regarded as a key factor in determi…Read more
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300A role for ownership and authorship in the analysis of thought insertionPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 8 (2): 205-224. 2008.Philosophers are interested in the phenomenon of thought insertion because it challenges the common assumption that one can ascribe to oneself the thoughts that one can access first-personally. In the standard philosophical analysis of thought insertion, the subject owns the ‘inserted’ thought but lacks a sense of agency towards it. In this paper we want to provide an alternative analysis of the condition, according to which subjects typically lack both ownership and authorship of the ‘inserted’…Read more
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190Most mental health research largely ignores or minimises gender and age differences in depression. In ‘Don't mind the gap: Why do we not care about the gender gap in mental health?’, Patalay and Demkowicz identify a dearth of research on the causal factors of depression in young women. They attribute this to an over-reliance on biological accounts of gender differences in depression. Patalay and Demkowicz conclude that a person-centred approach that meaningfully engages with the reports of young…Read more
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17Can an algorithm become delusional? Evaluating ontological commitments and methodology of computational psychiatryPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1-27. forthcoming.The computational approach to psychiatric disorders, including delusions, promises explanation and treatment. Here, we argue that an information processing approach might be misleading to understand psychopathology and requires further refinement. We explore the claim of computational psychiatry being a bridge between phenomenology and physiology while focussing on the ontological commitments and corresponding methodology computational psychiatry is based on. Interconnecting ontological claims a…Read more
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The ethics of early identification and intervention in psychosisIn Kelso Cratsley & Jennifer Radden (eds.), Mental Health as Public Health: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Ethics of Prevention, Elsevier. 2019.
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15Making psychiatry moral again: the role of psychiatry in patient moral developmentJournal of Medical Ethics 49 (6): 423-427. 2023.Psychiatric involvement in patient morality is controversial. If psychiatrists are tasked with shaping patient morality, the coercive potential of psychiatry is increased, treatment may be unfairly administered on the basis of patients’ moral beliefs rather than medical need, moral disputes could damage the therapeutic relationship and, in any case, we are often uncertain or conflicted about what is morally right. Yet, there is also a strong case for the view that psychiatry often works through …Read more
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2Rationality and self-knowledge in delusions and confabulations: Implications for autonomy as self-governanceIn Lubomira Radoilska (ed.), Autonomy and Mental Disorder, Oxford University Press. pp. 100-122. 2012.
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11Moral and legal implications of the continuity between delusional and non-delusional beliefsIn Geert Keil, Lara Keuck & Rico Hauswald (eds.), Vagueness in Psychiatry, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 191-210. 2017.
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11Affective Instability and ParanoiaIn Anna Bortolan & Alessandro Salice (eds.), Discipline Filosofiche (2018-2): Philosophical Perspectives on Affective Experience and Psychopathology, Quodlibet. pp. 123-136. 2018.
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Delusion formation and reasoning biases in those at clinical high risk for psychosisBritish Journal of Psychiatry. Supplement 51 (51). 2007.
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Imaging and delusionsIn D. Freeman, R. P. Bentall & P. A. Garety (eds.), Persecutory Delusions: Assessment, Theory, and Treatment, Oxford University Press. 2008.
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365IntroductionIn Giovanni Stanghellini, Matthew Broome, Anthony Vincent Fernandez, Paolo Fusar-Poli, Andrea Raballo & René Rosfort (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Phenomenological Psychopathology, Oxford University Press. 2018.Introduction to The Oxford Handbook of Phenomenological Psychopathology.
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University of WarwickRegular Faculty
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King's College LondonRegular Faculty
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Continental Philosophy |