Evolutionary psychiatry suggests that mental disorders can be explained in evolutionary terms (a) as failures of psychological mechanisms to produce the adaptive effects for which they were naturally selected, (b) as mismatches between naturally selected psychological mechanisms and contemporary environmental pressures, or (c) as naturally selected psychological mechanisms whose effects continue to be adaptive. In this paper, I present a philosophical critique of evolutionary psychiatry that draws on Subrena Smith’s matching problem for evolutionary psychology. (...) For evolutionary psychiatry hypotheses to be empirically supported, proponents of evolutionary psychiatry must demonstrate (1) that the contemporary psychological mechanisms involved in mental disorders resemble the psychological mechanisms of our evolutionary ancestors, (2) that the contemporary psychological mechanisms are phylogenetically descended from the ancestral psychological mechanisms, and (3) that the ancestral psychological mechanisms were naturally selected because their effects had adaptive benefits. However, for many mental disorders, evolutionary psychiatry lacks the methodological resources to demonstrate these conditions. Therefore, many evolutionary psychiatry hypotheses are empirically untestable and remain indefinitely underdetermined by data. (shrink)

In the last few decades, there has been a genuine ‘adaptive turn’ in psychiatry, resulting in evolutionary accounts for an increasing number of psychopathologies. In this paper, I explore the advantages and problems with the two main evolutionary approaches to depression, namely the mismatch and persistence accounts . I will argue that while both evolutionary theories of depression might provide some helpful perspectives, the accounts also harbor significant flaws that might question their authority and usefulness as (...) explanations. (shrink)

Delusions are currently characterised as false beliefs produced by incorrect inference about external reality (DSM IV). This inferential conception has proved hard to link to explanations pitched at the level of neurobiology and neuroanatomy. This paper provides that link via a neurocomputational theory, based on evolutionary considerations, of the role of the prefrontal cortex in regulating offline cognition. When pathologically neuromodulated the prefrontal cortex produces hypersalient experiences which monopolise offline cognition. The result is characteristic psychotic experiences and patterns of (...) thought. This bottom-up account uses neural network theory to integrate recent theories of the role of dopamine in delusion with the insights of inferential accounts. It also provides a general model for evolutionary psychiatry which avoids theoretical problems imported from evolutionary psychology. (shrink)

In this paper, I explain why evolutionary psychiatry is not where the next revolution in psychiatry will come from. I will proceed as follows. Firstly, I will review some of the problems commonly attributed to current nosologies, more specifically to the DSM. One of these problems is the lack of a clear and consensual definition of mental disorder; I will then examine specific attempts to spell out such a definition that use the evolutionary framework. One definition (...) that deserves particular attention, is one put forward by Jerome Wakefield. Despite my sympathy for his position, I must indicate a few reasons why I think his attempt might not be able to resolve the problems related to current nosologies. I suggest that it might be wiser for an evolutionary psychiatrist to adopt the more integrative framework of “treatable conditions”. As it is thought that an evolutionary approach can contribute to transforming the way we look at mental disorders, I will provide the reader with a brief sketch of the basic tenets of evolutionary psychology. The picture of the architecture of the human mind that emerges from evolutionary psychology is thought by some to be the crucial backdrop to identifying specific mental disorders and distinguishing them from normal conditions. I will also provide two examples of how evolutionary thinking is supposed to change our thinking about some disorders. Using the case of depression, I will then show what kind of problems evolutionary explanations of particular psychopathologies encounter. In conclusion, I will evaluate where evolutionary thinking leaves us in regard to what I identify as the main problems of our current nosologies. I’ll then argue that the prospects of evolutionary psychiatry are not good. (shrink)

Evolutionary psychiatrists invariably consider schizophrenia to be a paradox: how come natural selection has not yet eliminated the infamous ‘genes for schizophrenia’ if the disorder simply crushes the reproductive success of its carriers, if it has been around for thousands of years already, and if it has a uniform prevalence throughout the world? Usually, the answer is that the schizophrenic genotype is subject to some kind of balancing selection: the benefits it confers would then outbalance the obvious damage it (...) does. In this paper, however, I will show that the assumptions underlying such evolutionary accounts of schizophrenia are at least implausible, and sometimes even erroneous. First of all, I will examine some factual assumptions, in particular about schizophrenia’s impact on reproductive success, its genetics, its history, and its epidemiology. Secondly, I will take a critical look at a major philosophical assumption in evolutionary psychiatric explanations of schizophrenia. Indeed, evolutionary psychiatrists take it for granted that schizophrenia is a natural kind, i.e. a bounded and objectively real entity with discrete biological causes. My refutation of this natural kind view suggests that schizophrenia is in fact a reified umbrella concept, covering a heterogeneous group of disorders. Therefore, schizophrenia, as we now know it, simply doesn’t have an evolutionary history. (shrink)

Keller & Miller (K&M) propose that many psychiatric disorders are best explained in terms of a genetic watershed model. This view challenges traditional evolutionary accounts of psychiatric disorders, many of which have tried to argue in support of a presumed balanced polymorphism, implying some hidden adaptive advantage of the alleles predisposing people to psychiatric disorders. Does this mean that evolutionary ideas are no longer viable to explain psychiatric disorders? The answer is no. However, K&M's critical evaluation supports the (...) view that psychiatric disorders are not categorically distinct from normalcy, and that evolutionary psychopathology should be grounded in rigorous empirical testing. (Published Online November 9 2006). (shrink)

Mental illness is difficult to reconcile with the Darwinian theory of natural selection. Major psychiatric conditions, such as psychosis and suicidality, often occur in young adults and impair reproductive potential, yet they also appear to be genetically mediated.1 The challenge for evolutionary psychiatry has been to explain not only how such seemingly disadvantageous genes have evaded natural selection, but also how the widespread vulnerability to such conditions ever became established in the human genome in the first place.2In Things (...) Hidden Since the Foundation of the World,3 Girard, with psychiatrist coauthors Oughourlian and Lefort, advanced an account of human evolution in which the scapegoat mechanism... (shrink)

Robert Yerkes is a pivotal figure in American psychology and primatology in the first half of the twentieth century. As is well known, Yerkes first studied ape intelligence in 1915, on a visit to the private California laboratory of the psychiatrist Gilbert Hamilton, a former student. Less widely appreciated is how far the work done at the Hamilton lab, in its aims and ambitions as well as its techniques, served as a template for much of Yerkes’s research thereafter. This paper (...) uses the Hamilton–Yerkes relationship to re-examine Yerkes’s career and, more generally, that of American psychology in the early twentieth century. Three points especially are emphasized: first, the role of Freudian psychoanalysis as a spur to Hamilton’s experimental studies of ape intelligence; second, the importance of Hamilton’s laboratory, with its semi-wild population of monkeys and ape, as a model for Yerkes’s efforts to create a laboratory of his own; and third, the influence on Yerkes of Hamilton’s optimism about experimental psychological studies of nonhuman primates as a source of lessons beneficial to a troubled human world. (shrink)

To the evolutionarily oriented clinical psychiatrist, the discipline of behavioural ecology is a fertile basic science. Human psychology discusses variation in terms of means, standard deviations, heritabilities, and so on, but behavioural ecology deals with mutually incompatible alternative behavioural strategies, the heritable variation being maintained by negative frequency-dependent selection. I suggest that behavioural ecology should be included in the interdisciplinary dialogue recommended by Keller & Miller (K&M). (Published Online November 9 2006).

Maladapting Minds discusses a number of reasons why philosophers of psychiatry should take an interest in evolutionary explanations of mental disorders and, more generally, in evolutionary thinking. First of all, there is the nascent field of evolutionary psychiatry. Unlike other psychiatrists, evolutionary psychiatrists engage with ultimate, rather than proximate, questions about mental illnesses. Being a young and youthful new discipline, evolutionary psychiatry allows for a nice case study in the philosophy of science. (...) Secondly, philosophers of psychiatry have engaged with evolutionary theory because evolutionary considerations are often said to play a role in defining the concept of mental disorder. The basic question here is: Can the concept of mental disorder be given an objective definition, or is it rather a normative concept? Thirdly and finally, evolutionary thinking in psychiatry has often been a source of inspiration for a philosophical view on human nature. Thus evolutionary psychiatrists have suggested, for example, that man's vulnerability to mental disorders may well be one of the defining features of our species. -/- Written by leading authors in philosophy, psychiatry, biology and psychology, this volume illustrates that many debates in contemporary philosophy of psychiatry are profoundly influenced by evolutionary approaches to mental disorders. Conversely, it also reveals how philosophers can help contribute to the burgeoning field of evolutionary psychiatry. It is important reading for a wide range of readers interested in mental health care and philosophy. (shrink)

The language of evolutionary biology and psychology is built on concepts applicable in the first instance to individual strategic rationality but extended to the level of genetic explanation. Current discussions of mental disorders as evolutionary adaptations would apply that extended language back to the individual level, with potentially problematic moral/political implications as well as possibilities of confusion. This paper focuses on one particularly problematic area: the explanation of women's greater tendency to depression. The suggestion that there are "good (...) evolutionary reasons" for depression makes sense, and might be helpful to note in therapy, as implying that the tendency is not a defect. However, evolutionary adaptiveness should not be confused with individual or psychological adaptiveness. Besides making reference to an earlier environment, it presupposes a strategic standpoint that may not accord with the legitimate interests of the individual, as this example makes vivid. (shrink)

What’s Darwin got to do with it? The role of evolutionary theory in psychiatry Content Type Journal Article Category Review Essay Pages 1-12 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9301-3 Authors Ian Ravenscroft, Philosophy Department, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867.

This groundbreaking volume of original essays presents fresh avenues of inquiry at the intersection of philosophy and psychiatry. Contributors draw from a variety of fields, including evolutionary psychiatry, phenomenology, biopsychosocial models, psychoanalysis, neuroscience, neuroethics, behavioral economics, and virtue theory. Philosophy and Psychiatry’s unique structure consists of two parts: in the first, philosophers write five lead essays with replies from psychiatrists. In the second part, this arrangement is reversed. The result is an interdisciplinary exchange that allows for (...) direct discourse, and a volume at the forefront of defining an emerging discipline. Philosophy and Psychiatry will be of interest to professionals in philosophy and psychiatry, as well as mental health researchers and clinicians. (shrink)

Freud's philosophical anthropology is in fact little more than an amplified psychiatry. For Freud, the human being is in essence a sick animal. In this paper, I discuss the possibility of founding this "anthropological turn" on evolutionary biology. On the one hand, it is shown that Freud's own attempted "evolutionary psychiatry" failed because of his very limited knowledge of Darwinism and his awe for Haeckel and Lamarck. On the other hand, I argue that more recent attempts (...) to reconcile psychoanalysis and evolutionary biology do not always provide a solid biological foundation for the Freudian philosophical project, despite the fact that they are—from a Darwinian point of view—tenable. This is so because, generally speaking, these theories consider psychopathologies either as adaptations or as accidental disorders, and not as inevitable but dysfunctional parts of human nature, like Freud did. (shrink)

Eating disorders are evolutionarily novel conditions that lead to some of the highest mortality rates of all psychiatric disorders. Several evolutionary hypotheses have been proposed for eating disorders, but only the intrasexual competition hypothesis is extensively supported by evidence. We present the mismatch hypothesis as a necessary extension to the current theoretical framework of eating disorders. This hypothesis explains the evolutionarily novel adaptive metaproblem that has arisen when mating motives and readily available food rewards conflict with one another. This (...) situation is exacerbated in contemporary environments characterized by sedentary lifestyles, caloric surplus and the ubiquity of social comparisons that take place via social media. Our psychoneuroimmunological model connects ultimate-level causation with proximate mechanisms by showing how the adaptive metaproblem between mating motives and food rewards leads to chronic stress and, further, to disordered eating. Chronic stress causes neuroinflammation, which increases susceptibility to OCD-like behaviors that typically co-occur with eating disorders. Chronic stress upregulates the serotonergic system and causes dysphoric mood in patients with restricting-type anorexia nervosa. Dieting, however, reduces serotonin levels and dysphoric mood, leading to a vicious serotonergic-homeostatic stress/starvation cycle whereby cortisol and neuroinflammation increase through stringent dieting. Between-individual and within-individual variation in eating disorders partially arises from (co)variation in gut microbiota and stress responsivity, which influence neuroinflammation and the serotonergic system. In binge-related eating disorders, even a short period of fasting drops serotonin levels, a state alleviated by binge eating. Eating disorder treatments should aim to reduce the chronic stress, neuroinflammation, stress responsivity and gut dysbiosis that fuel the disorders. We review the advances that have been made in recent years in understanding how to best treat eating disorders, outlining directions for future clinical research. Connecting ultimate causes with proximate mechanisms and treating biopsychosocial causes rather than manifest symptoms will enable more effective and sophisticated long-term interventions for the millions of people who suffer from eating disorders. (shrink)

Epidemiology is a science of disease which specifies rates (illness prevalences, incidences, distributions, etc.). Evolution is a science of life which specifies changes (gene frequencies, generations, forms, function, etc.). Evolutionary Epidemiology is a synthesis of these two sciences which combines the empirical power of classical methods in genetical epidemiology with the interpretive capacities of neo-darwinian evolutionary genetics. In particular, prevalence rates of genetical diseases are important data points when reformulated for the purpose of analysis in terms of their (...) evolutionary frequencies. Traits which exceedprevalences beyond the rates of mutation (in Hardy-Weinberg calculations) or evidence unusualrange of phenotypic reaction are of special interest. This is because traits which did not confer advantages in the environment of evolutionary adaptation cannot accede, through natural selection, to anything but low rates of genomic prevalence.Evolutionary epidemiology is, in all of medicine, of particular promise in ongoing efforts to better understand psychopathology. Many complexities of phenotypic adjustment arise when new developmental demands are placed on an old genome. The new and complex biosocial ecology of human mass society now evokes different phenotypes than those in the prehistorical ecology to which the genome is structurally and functionally better adapted. Some of these new phenotypes are darwinian failures. In this paper, the theoretical implications of evolutionary epidemiology are extended and some tentative points of clinical application (particularly to psychiatry) are offered. (shrink)

Emotions can be explained as specialized states, shaped by natural selection, that increase fitness in specific situations. The physiological, psychological, and behavioral characteristics of a specific emotion can be analyzed as possible design features that increase the ability to cope with the threats and opportunities present in the corresponding situation. This approach to understanding the evolutionary functions of emotions is illustrated by the correspondence between (a) the subtypes of fear and the different kinds of threat; (b) the attributes of (...) happiness and sadness and the changes that would be advantageous in propitious and unpropitious situations; and (c) the social emotions and the adaptive challenges of reciprocity relationships. In addition to addressing a core theoretical problem shared by evolutionary and cognitive psychology, explicit formulations of the evolutionary functions of specific emotions are of practical importance for understanding and treating emotional disorders. (shrink)

Schizophrenia is a worldwide, prevalent disorder with a multifactorial but highly genetic aetiology. A constant prevalence rate in the face of reduced fecundity has caused some to argue that an evolutionary advantage exists in unaffected relatives. Here, I critique this adaptationist approach, and review – and find wanting – Crow's “speciation” hypothesis. In keeping with available biological and psychological evidence, I propose an alternative theory of the origins of this disorder. Schizophrenia is a disorder of the social brain, and (...) it exists as a costly trade-off in the evolution of complex social cognition. Paleoanthropological and comparative primate research suggests that hominids evolved complex cortical interconnectivity (in particular, frontotemporal and frontoparietal circuits) to regulate social cognition and the intellectual demands of group living. I suggest that the ontogenetic mechanism underlying this cerebral adaptation was sequential hypermorphosis and that it rendered the hominid brain vulnerable to genetic and environmental insults. I argue that changes in genes regulating the timing of neurodevelopment occurred prior to the migration of Homo sapiens out of Africa 100,000–150,000 years ago, giving rise to the schizotypal spectrum. While some individuals within this spectrum may have exhibited unusual creativity and iconoclasm, this phenotype was not necessarily adaptive in reproductive terms. However, because the disorder shared a common genetic basis with the evolving circuitry of the social brain, it persisted. Thus schizophrenia emerged as a costly trade-off in the evolution of complex social cognition. Key Words: cortical connectivity; evolution; heterochrony; metarepresentation; primates; psychiatry; schizophrenia; social brain; social cognition. (shrink)

The language of evolutionary biology and psychology is built on concepts applicable in the first instance to individual strategic rationality but extended to the level of genetic explanation. Current discussions of mental disorders as evolutionary adaptations would apply that extended language back to the individual level, with potentially problematic moral/political implications as well as possibilities of confusion. This paper focuses on one particularly problematic area: the explanation of women's greater tendency to depression. The suggestion that there are "good (...) evolutionary reasons" for depression makes sense, and might be helpful to note in therapy, as implying that the tendency is not a defect. However, evolutionary adaptiveness should not be confused with individual or psychological adaptiveness. Besides making reference to an earlier environment, it presupposes a strategic standpoint that may not accord with the legitimate interests of the individual, as this example makes vivid. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What Is Psychiatry About?Dominic Murphy, PhD (bio)There are no such things as minds, but there are animate objects who behave differently from other types of natural entity. They move around under their own power, and some of their activity seems to be very different from that of other natural objects. Furthermore, some of our predictions about these objects are disproved in interesting ways; if we make a false (...) prediction we do not revise our best theory about how such things generally behave, but we instead conclude that there is something wrong with the object of the prediction. These intelligent unpredictable things need a special vocabulary, and mental talk has arisen to serve as that vocabulary. But since a mind is not a thing in nature we face the problem of saying what the sciences of the mind are actually about.There are, then, intelligent systems that can be judged pathological, and some of them are our conspecifics. It is fair to say that there is no agreement about how such judgments are made or should be made. The question of what a mental illness is part of this larger picture, and it raises several different issues.First, how should we think about our practices of judging deviance? It would be contrary to accepted practice to wear a swimsuit to a state funeral, but what sort of norms would it violate and what state of mind would we ascribe to somebody who did it? Second, what is the difference between a judgment of deviance and a judgment of pathology? We have many ways of distinguishing between types of deviance, and the lines between criminality, immorality and pathology, to take three examples, are not always easy to discern. Third, what makes an illness a mental illness? This is Gough's topic, and I will get to it in a moment, but it worth situating it within this broader framework which asks what we are doing when we make these judgments of norm-violation.Gough begins by quite correctly pointing out that if we look at the domain of psychiatry as currently understood, we would have a hard time seeing what it is supposed to be the science of. It is customary to see psychiatry as dealing with the mental but, as Gough notes, there are some mental processes that psychiatry does not deal with, and some processes that psychiatry deals with that are not mental. Gough's response to this problem is a very interesting one, which starts from the idea that the point of psychiatry is to help those who need it; how different do things look if we start from this position? Conley and Glackin (2021) argues that the practical and therapeutic aspirations of psychiatry should constrain our understanding of mental illness. Glackin argues that we should [End Page 41] see this 'norms-first' view, as I will call it, as part of a broader liberal-democratic conversation about the ways in which we should live togetherA view that starts with norms is typically opposed to the 'naturalist' position. A naturalist begins with positive facts as the basis for diagnostic concepts, on the grounds that our concepts of disease and health are supposed to answer to facts about the physical and mental constitution of human beings. Gough's view is neither a norms-first view or a naturalist's view. We could call it an institutionalist view, or, if we were being a bit less kind, an ostensive one—"these things here, that's mental illness."David Hull (1988) taught us that every science (indeed, every intellectual formation or tradition) needs to be understood in two ways. First, we have the theoretical commitments that are taken to define it. Second, there are the practices and institutions that separate its practitioners off from others. Contemporary evolutionary biology, for instance, is built on the twin foundations of the modern synthesis—Darwinian natural selection and Mendelian genetics. These two theoretical commitments have been transformed and adapted and supplemented in diverse ways so that their modern forms no longer resemble their originals very closely. Still, they continue as the central undertakings about the nature of the living world that modern... (shrink)

ArgumentThroughout his career as a writer, Sigmund Freud maintained an interest in the evolutionary origins of the human mind and its neurotic and psychotic disorders. In common with many writers then and now, he believed that the evolutionary past is conserved in the mind and the brain. Today the “evolutionary Freud” is nearly forgotten. Even among Freudians, he is regarded to be a red herring, relevant only to the extent that he diverts attention from the enduring achievements (...) of the authentic Freud. There are three ways to explain these attitudes. First, the evolutionary Freud's key work is the “Overview of the Transference Neurosis”. But it was published at an inopportune moment, forty years after the author's death, during the so-called “Freud wars.” Second, Freud eventually lost interest in the “Overview” and the prospect of a comprehensive evolutionary theory of psychopathology. The publication of The Ego and the Id, introducing Freud's structural theory of the psyche, marked the point of no return. Finally, Freud's evolutionary theory is simply not credible. It is based on just-so stories and a thoroughly discredited evolutionary mechanism, Lamarckian use-inheritance. Explanations one and two are probably correct but also uninteresting. Explanation number three assumes that there is a fundamental difference between Freud's evolutionary narratives and the evolutionary accounts of psychopathology that currently circulate in psychiatry and mainstream journals. The assumption is mistaken but worth investigating. (shrink)

Given that natural selection is so powerful at optimizing complex adaptations, why does it seem unable to eliminate genes (susceptibility alleles) that predispose to common, harmful, heritable mental disorders, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder? We assess three leading explanations for this apparent paradox from evolutionary genetic theory: (1) ancestral neutrality (susceptibility alleles were not harmful among ancestors), (2) balancing selection (susceptibility alleles sometimes increased fitness), and (3) polygenic mutation-selection balance (mental disorders reflect the inevitable mutational load on the (...) thousands of genes underlying human behavior). The first two explanations are commonly assumed in psychiatric genetics and Darwinian psychiatry, while mutation-selection has often been discounted. All three models can explain persistent genetic variance in some traits under some conditions, but the first two have serious problems in explaining human mental disorders. Ancestral neutrality fails to explain low mental disorder frequencies and requires implausibly small selection coefficients against mental disorders given the data on the reproductive costs and impairment of mental disorders. Balancing selection (including spatio-temporal variation in selection, heterozygote advantage, antagonistic pleiotropy, and frequency-dependent selection) tends to favor environmentally contingent adaptations (which would show no heritability) or high-frequency alleles (which psychiatric genetics would have already found). Only polygenic mutation-selection balance seems consistent with the data on mental disorder prevalence rates, fitness costs, the likely rarity of susceptibility alleles, and the increased risks of mental disorders with brain trauma, inbreeding, and paternal age. This evolutionary genetic framework for mental disorders has wide-ranging implications for psychology, psychiatry, behavior genetics, molecular genetics, and evolutionary approaches to studying human behavior. (Published Online November 9 2006) Key Words: adaptation; behavior genetics; Darwinian psychiatry; evolution; evolutionary genetics; evolutionary psychology; mental disorders; mutation-selection balance; psychiatric genetics; quantitative trait loci (QTL). (shrink)

Disease represents a principal tentacle of natural selection and a staple theme of evolutionary medicine. However, it is through a small portal of entry and a very long lineage that disease as sickness entered behavioural spaces and human consciousness. This has a long evolutionary history. Anyone interested in the origins of medicine and psychiatry as social institution has to start with analysis of how mind and body were conceptualised and played out behaviourally following the pongid/hominin split and (...) thereafter. The early evolution of medicine provides a template for clarifying elemental characteristics of mind and minding. Sickness and healing in chimpanzees represents an early manifestation of (ethno) medicine, termed a behavioural tradition, which is found played out in routines of helping, caring, and healing as well as other social behaviours. Chimpanzees seem to know they are sick since they resort to self-medication when exhibiting signs and symptoms of disease. Also, they help those exhibiting physical and cognitive disability. Among hominins, awareness of consequences and implications of sickness and coping with them represented an important feature of human consciousness and a major factor in the origins of vaunted human abilities involving language, cognition, and culture as we know them. A philosophical examination of the early evolution of sickness and healing provides a window into an understanding of evolving human capacities such as self-awareness, awareness and implications of suffering, theory of mind, altruism, conceptual grasp of sickness and healing and morality. (shrink)

Freud, working from a background in clinical neurology and against a backdrop of burgeoning theory development in biology and neurophysiology, thought that the layers of the mind mirrored the layers of the brain although he was well aware of the conceptual problems involved in trying to identify the two. His associationist view, based on a neurobiological and evolutionary approach to the mind tends to underestimate the role of consciousness in a holistic conception of the psyche. The role of language (...) and the disciplines and practices which structure the psyche make it a domain in which negotiated solutions to life challenges are produced from the socio-cultural resources of discourse applied to the biological propensities resulting from innate dispositions and learning history. Although the biological and social realms obey fundamentally different rules, their psychological effects are realised in a common medium — the brain — a fact that can be detached from reductive approaches to psychology or psychiatry and can give substance to the idea of the body being inscribed like a surface on which events have left their trace. (shrink)

The target article shows that the application of the evolutionary theory to psychopathology should not necessarily consist in finding hidden adaptive benefits for each psychiatric syndrome. However, in rejecting lax adaptationism, Darwinian psychiatrists should not forget that the search for adaptive behavioral polymorphisms can be a powerful antidote against the normative attitude of mainstream psychiatry and its growing tendency to medicalize human diversity. (Published Online November 9 2006).

A long-standing theoretical tradition in clinical psychology and psychiatry sees deliberate self-harm , such as wrist-cutting, as “functional”—a means to avoid painful emotions, for example, or to elicit attention from others. There is substantial evidence that DSH serves these functions. Yet the specific links between self-harm and such functions remain obscure. Why don’t self-harmers use less destructive behaviors to blunt painful emotions or elicit attention? Economists and biologists have used game theory to show that, under certain circumstances, self-harmful behaviors (...) by economic agents and animals serve important strategic goals. In particular, “costly signals” can credibly reveal a “private state” in situations where verbal claims and other “cheap” signals might be disbelieved. Here, DSH is scrutinized using signaling theory, and a variant, the theory of bargaining with private information. The social contexts and associated features of DSH suggest that it might be a costly, and therefore credible, signal of need that compels social partners to respond. (shrink)

I distinguish three evolutionary explanations of mental illness: first, breakdowns in evolved computational systems; second, evolved systems performing their evolutionary function in a novel environment; third, evolved personality structures. I concentrate on the second and third explanations, as these are distinctive of an evolutionary psychopathology, with progressively less credulity in the light of the empirical evidence. General morals are drawn for evolutionary psychiatry.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.4 (2005) 343-348 [Access article in PDF] Doomed by Nature: The Inevitable Failure of our Naturally Selected Functions Andreas De Block Keywords psychoanalysis, Darwinism, evolutionary psychiatry, pathogenic metaphysics In their very thoughtful and stimulating replies, the three commentators foreground several topics crucial for both psychoanalysis and philosophical psychiatry. In my short response, I focus primarily on what the commentators believe to (...) be the paper's main shortcomings. The first critique reads as follows: Freud never claimed that the Homo sapiens is a fundamentally sick animal, but in fact thought that normalcy is possible and that normal behavior need not be interpreted as neurotic, perverse or psychotic. The second is that current Darwinian psychiatry does not substantiate the view that Homo sapiens is essentially an ill animal, whatever Freud's position might be. Third and last, the proposal that all human beings are ill to the core seems to be more of a religious slogan than a scientifically useful description. What Freud Really Said A transhistorical approach to Freud's work is far from simple, considering that it spans a period of over forty years and that it underwent considerable changes during that time. Not only did Freud introduce some radically new concepts during that time, such as narcissism and the death drive. Also, he regularly changed his position on the aim of psychoanalytic therapy, the ontogenesis of anxiety, and the nature of human sexuality. That Freud sometimes saw homosexuality as an inborn drive did not keep him on other occasions from thinking that homosexual desire was a result of the repression or projection of an oedipal (heterosexual) drive. Examples like these show that any exegesis of Freud's writings inevitably has to deal with some tensions. Freud's work contains numerous apparent, as well as real, contradictions, so that it is no surprise at all that Katherine Morris can produce textual evidence "proving" that Freud never held the view I attribute to him. According to her, Freud thought that we are not all neurotics and that normalcy is possible.I do not deny that several passages in Freud's work underscore the possibility of non-neurotic normalcy. Indeed, Freudian theory even describes processes—sublimation, the transformation from Id to Ego, the resolution of the oedipal complex, among others—that explain how human beings can escape neurosis and other mental disorders. But Freud's illustrations of these mechanisms or processes make clear that he could not conceive [End Page 343] of a nonpathogenic psychodynamics. Consider, for instance, how Freud emphasizes throughout his study of Leonardo da Vinci that Leonardo's sublimations make him extremely vulnerable to psychic exhaustion or "neurasthenia" (1910). Freud never tires of repeating that there is only a gradual difference between a neurotic patient and Leonardo da Vinci, the sublimating ("healthy") artist and scientist.Morris (2005) is right, of course, in arguing that a gradual difference between normality and mental illness does not imply that there is no difference at all. Quantity should not be thought the opposite of quality, because small quantitative differences can transform an "articulation" into a "breach." To use Hegel's famous example, there is a continuum between 110° C and -10° C, but everybody knows that that water evaporates above 100° C and freezes below 0° C. Applied to mental disorders, quantitative differences in levels of testosterone and serotonin may lead to qualitative differences in behavior; in other words, categorical and dimensional approaches to mental illnesses are not mutually exclusive. Having established that, we now need to take a closer look at how Freud articulated the differences between seemingly normal individuals and the mentally ill.Freud held that neurosis, psychosis, and perversion are caused by the interplay between instincts and defense mechanisms. Further, he thought that the pathogenic instincts were almost exclusively sexual. Now, although it is true that he sometimes recognized that the fear of death and the death drive are important factors for psychic life (Deeley 2005) and for the etiology of psychosis, more often than not he interpreted the fear of death as a symbolization of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.3 (2002) 255-259 [Access article in PDF] On the Evolution of Depression Mike W. Martin Keywords: Depression, morality, mental disorders, psychobiology, evolutionary psychiatry. In "Depression as a Mind-Body Problem," Walter Glannon outlines a psychosocial-physiological explanation of depression as a psychological response to chronic stress—today, especially social stress—in which cortisol imbalances disrupt neurotransmitters. Accordingly, treatment for depression should combine psychopharmacology and psychotherapy—a valuable (...) reminder in light of the current restrictions on funding for health care (Hobson and Leonard 2001). My comments focus, however, on Glannon's objections to evolutionary theorists who explain our capacity for depression as adaptive to the natural and social environment. His objections are implausible because he fails to distinguish depression as a mood and a disorder. What Is Depression? Explaining the psychology, sociology, physiology, and evolution of depression presupposes knowing what depression is and hence what is being explained. As a blunt but important distinction, let us contrast depression as a mood and as a mood disorder.As a mood, depression is a state of low spirits, typically involving painful and low affect (of a kind needing further specification). Not all negative low moods are depressions. It is notoriously difficult to distinguish depression from grief, sadness, gloom, and a host of additional ways to feel down—especially because today many people use "I'm depressed" as a blanket expression for virtually any low mood. For the purposes of this paper, it is not necessary to attempt a full-blown analysis of depressed moods (and emotions). I would emphasize, however, that depressed moods involve values. They involve negative evaluations of ourselves, major events in our lives, life in its entirety, or the values that have been guiding us. Typically, to be depressed is to experience such things as feelings of worthlessness, dejection about failures, despair and hopelessness, and loss of caring and commitment. Thus, we might be sad or grieving but not depressed because we retain a solid grip on what is valuable and worthwhile. In any case, there should be no general presumption that depressed moods are all bad or undesirable. Instead, we should be prepared to appreciate the importance of depressed moods in connection with questions of value, identity, and even moral insight (Martin 2000). Depressed persons are not necessarily sick.In contrast, depression as a mood disorder is, by definition, pathologic. Moreover, usually it is not a depressed mood, although it involves depressed moods. On the one hand, depression as a disorder is defined as pathologic, a notion that is itself understood in terms of values—the values of health and, indirectly, moral values that define what is culturally acceptable. Thus, even severe [End Page 255] grief can be nonpathologic, even though it involves depressed moods, when it is within the range of "culturally-sanctioned responses" (APA 2000, xxxi). On the other hand, only sometimes is depression a single pathologic mood, as in major depressive episodes that can strike with a terrifying and suicidal severity (APA 2000, 375). Usually, however, the pathology is not a single depressed mood, but instead a longer-term state involving recurring depressed moods and additional features, such as poor concentration, insomnia, poor appetite or overeating, and so on. For some purposes, such as research funding and billing insurance companies and government health providers, these pathologies can be equated with what is currently in the DSM. Yet, there are many additional states of suboptimal health, in which the DSM criteria are only partly met.What does Glannon mean by depression? He does not define it, but he makes it perfectly clear that he intends depression as a disorder. Or rather, it is a set of mental disorders, including the "depressive disorders" of major depressive disorder, dysthymic disorder, depressive disorder not otherwise specified, and a variety of bipolar disorders and some anxiety disorders. Glannon sometimes indicates his primary topic is "severe depression," which of course is not a DSM category (nor always a mark of pathology). For the most part, however, he says his topic is "chronic depression," which might suggest dysthymia, "a chronically depressed mood for most of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.4 (2005) 325-329 [Access article in PDF] Psychoanalysis as Natural Philosophy R. D. Hinshelwood Keywords evolution, psychopathology, ethics, unconscious phantasy Andreas De Block has offered us a most fascinating paper. We do not have to agree with all his points to be profoundly stimulated by them. His core proposition is that Freud pathologizes ordinary psychology and personalities, as well as the abnormal. There has (...) been a perennial debate about whether, psychoanalytically speaking, there is a continuum from pathology to normality or if there is a discontinuity at some point between the two. Freud's famous quote—"much will be gained if we succeed in transforming your hysterical misery into common unhappiness" (Breuer and Freud 1895, 305)—is ambiguous. Interestingly, De Block takes a hard stand on this; he not only assumes a continuum, but further he reads Freud as saying that all normality is neurotic. This is not a usual reading of Freud. De Block then expands this into a philosophical position. It is, he says, Freud's philosophy on the nature of mind.Freud himself was not interested in philosophy, and thought it largely irrelevant to psychoanalysis. In fact, he mused about the traffic being inevitably in the opposite direction—that philosophy might come to psychoanalysis. In discussing the work of a philosophically inclined analyst, he remarked, The decisive reason for the rejection of Putnam's proposals was the doubt as to which of the countless philosophical systems should be accepted, since they all seem to rest on an equally insecure basis.... It seemed more prudent to wait, and to discover whether a particular attitude towards life might be forced upon us with all the weight of necessity by analytical investigation itself. (Freud 1921, 270) Psychoanalysis, Freud thought, might be the very substance from which a philosophical system could emerge. De Block has followed that route; he has gone to Freud's writing to discovery a weltanshaung on which we might develop a philosophy of life. He has come back from his intellectual expedition with Freud's fascinating paper, published only in 1987 (discovered in 1983), "A Phylogenetic Phantasy." This was actually written in 1914, but Freud never published it and in fact destroyed his own copy of the draft. The paper has been called a "metabiology" (Gubrich-Simitis 1987), and deals with Freud's speculation on how a threatened species during the ice age developed certain biological and biopsychological traits1 necessary to survive the harsh environmental conditions. These traxits, which included the repression of libido, had significant side effects, namely, the pathologies arising from repression: the neuroses, perversions and psychoses. Moreover, today the environmental conditions no longer apply, so we are left with the side effects of traits that are no longer biologically useful. [End Page 325]So, De Block indicates at least the possibility of an evolutionary theory of the nature of mind. Even if Freud's Lamarckianism makes his particular speculative metabiology implausible, it is a way of thinking that suggests that a theory of mind can arise from biological understanding of its evolutionary development. However, De Block goes further. As a corollary, because Freud's view of the evolution of mind is to involve the evolutionary nature of psychopathology, then Freud's psychoanalysis can suggest an evolutionary psychiatry—that is to say, psychiatry can look for distant causes of mental disturbance in the vagaries of evolutionary influence.This way of approaching philosophy is interesting because it starts with the outcome of a scientific investigation of the human mind, just as Freud suggested in the passage quoted (Freud 1921, 270). The prospect is for a natural philosophy of mind, just as the physics of fundamental particles and the "big bang" prompt us toward a kind of natural ontology of the universe and its contents, arising from empirically tested facts.However, De Block is on rather uncertain ground with the evidence for his argument; he commits Freud to this biological speculation on the basis of a paper that Freud did not in fact publish and tore up.2 Even if Freud's reading of the evolutionary origins of man... (shrink)

Mental disorders are often thought to be harmful dysfunctions. Jerome Wakefield has argued that such dysfunctions should be understood as failures of naturally selected functions. This suggests that evolutionary biology and other Darwinian disciplines hold important information for anyone working on answering the philosophical question, "What is a mental disorder?". In this article, the author argues that Darwinian theory is not only relevant to the understanding of the disrupted functions, but it also sheds light on the disruption itself, as (...) well as on the harm that attends the disruption. The arguments advanced here are partially based on the view that a core feature of Darwinism is that it stresses the environmental relativity of functions and dysfunctions. These arguments show a very close empirical connection between social judgments and dysfunctions, which is of interest for psychiatric theory. Philosophically, they lead to the conclusion that the concept of mental disorder is identical to the concept of mental dysfunction. Consequently, it is both misleading and redundant to conceptualize mental disorders as 'harmful dysfunctions', and not simply as 'mental dysfunctions'. (shrink)

Several theorists have tried to model anorexia on Wasser and Barash’s (1983) “reproductive suppression model” (RSM). According to the RSM, individual females adaptively suppress their reproductive functioning under conditions of social or physiological stress. From this perspective, mild anorexia is viewed as an adaptive response to modern conditions; more severe anorexia is viewed as an adaptation gone awry. Previous models have not, however, examined the full richness of the RSM. Specifically, Wasser and Barash documented not only self-imposed reproductive suppression, but (...) also manipulative reproductive suppression of subordinate females by dominants. I propose that the modern “epidemic” of anorexia is explained neither by adaptive self-suppression nor by environmental mismatch (an adaptation gone awry); I propose that the “epidemic” levels of anorexia seen in modern western society are a direct consequence of intrasexual competition, the scope of which has been enhanced by the power and reach of modern communications media. According to this perspective, anorexia, even in its mild forms, is a manipulative strategy imposed on subordinates by dominants. Anorexia is, in both senses, a “losing” strategy. (shrink)

For some, biology explains all there is to know about the mind. Yet many big questions remain: is the mind shaped by genes or the environment? If mental traits are the result of adaptations built up over thousands of years, as evolutionary psychologists claim, how can such claims be tested? If the mind is a machine, as biologists argue, how does it allow for something as complex as human consciousness? The Biological Mind: A Philosophical Introduction explores these questions and (...) more, using the philosophy of biology to introduce and assess the nature of the mind. Drawing on the four key themes of evolutionary biology; molecular biology and genetics; neuroscience; and biomedicine and psychiatry Justin Garson addresses the following key topics: moral psychology, altruism and levels of selection evolutionary psychology and modularity genes, environment and the nature-nurture debate neuroscience, reductionism and the relation between biology and free will function, selection and mental representation psychiatric classification and the maladapted mind. Extensive use of examples and case studies is made throughout the book, and additional features such as chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary make this an indispensable introduction to those teaching philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology. It will also be an excellent resource for those in related fields such as biology. (shrink)

The philosophy of medicine and psychiatry has considered the defining of disease, illness, and disorder an important project for over three decades. Within this literature, accounts based on adaptive "functions" have been prominent, particularly in the DSM nosology. In response to this trend, Jerome Wakefield has presented a view of mental disorder as "harmful dysfunction." In this view, "harm" contributes the value-element to disorder concepts, while "dysfunction" implies a value-free foundation as long as the latter is grounded in (...) class='Hi'>evolutionary biology. In a critical review of Wakefield's and others' functionalist arguments for disorder concepts, we make four major points. We recommend a shift away from the definition of value-free disorder concepts, instead emphasizing the analysis of the logical features and the value commitments in nosological categories. (shrink)

According to anthropological philosopher René Girard, an important human adaptation is our propensity to victimize or scapegoat. He argued that other traits upon which human sociality depends would have destabilized primate dominance-based social hierarchies, making conspecific conflict a limiting factor in hominin evolution. He surmised that a novel mechanism for inhibiting intragroup conflict must have emerged contemporaneously with our social traits, and speculated that this was the tendency to spontaneously unite around the victimization of single individuals. He described an unconscious (...) tendency to both ascribe blame and to imbue the accused with a sacred mystique. This emotionally cathartic scapegoat mechanism, he claimed, enhanced social cohesion, and was the origin of religion, mythology, sacrifice, ritual, cultural institutions, and social norms. It would have functioned by modifying the beliefs and behaviors of the group, rather than of the accused, making the act of accusation more important than the substance. This article aims to examine the empirical evidence for Girard’s claims, and argues that the scapegoat hypothesis has commonalities with several other evolutionary hypotheses, including Wrangham’s execution hypothesis on self-domestication, Dunbar’s hypothesis on the role of storytelling in maintaining group stability, and DeScioli and Kurzban’s hypothesis on the role of non-consequentialist morality in curtailing conflict. Potential implications of the scapegoat hypothesis for evolutionary psychology and psychiatry are discussed. (shrink)

The biological functions debate is a perennial topic in the philosophy of science. In the first full-length account of the nature and importance of biological functions for many years, Justin Garson presents an innovative new theory, the 'generalized selected effects theory of function', which seamlessly integrates evolutionary and developmental perspectives on biological functions. He develops the implications of the theory for contemporary debates in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of medicine and psychiatry, the philosophy of biology, and (...) biology itself, addressing issues ranging from the nature of mental representation to our understanding of the function of the human genome. Clear, jargon-free, and engagingly written, with accessible examples and explanatory diagrams to illustrate the discussion, his book will be highly valuable for readers across philosophical and scientific disciplines. (shrink)

Ecology of the Brain: The Phenomenology and Biology of the Embodied Mind joins a growing body of writings which presents a serious and compelling challenge to the neuro-centrism and physicalist reductionism that has been predominant in recent philosophy of mind and in the human sciences. This volume will not only be relevant to researchers interested in the philosophy of mind and the role to be played by the human sciences in this domain, but it will also be a valuable addition (...) to any psychiatric training program. It complements the pioneering work of Karl Jaspers and offers a much needed antidote to the explicit or implicit Cartesianism and physicalist reductionism that still persists in many psychiatric writings, research programs and approaches to clinical practice. As Fuchs alerts, the failure to appreciate the organism’s or individual’s embeddedness in an environment, in a world, has stymied efforts to advance psychiatric theory and practice and we can also say this failure has contributed to the current crisis in legitimacy of psychiatry (Daly and Gallagher, 2019). Despite hopes and ambitions that neuroscience might rescue psychiatry from this crisis, it is increasingly clear that it cannot deliver on this promise as long as researchers and clinicians ignore the life-world (das Umwelt) and neglect the concept of life itself as Fuchs proposes. An ecological approach to understanding the brain is thus crucial so as to address these deficiencies. Fuchs acknowledges the previous articulation of a compatible view in the work of Gregory Bateson’s, Steps to an Ecology of the Mind (1972). While Bateson draws on anthropology and evolutionary theory, Fuchs draws on the resources of phenomenology and neurobiology. Fuchs offers integrated analyses of ideas not only from Bateson, but also from the classic phenomenological sources of Husserl, Jaspers and Merleau-Ponty, and brings these ideas into engagement with current neuroscience, psychological medicine, psychiatric theory and practice. (shrink)

The manifest appearance of function and purpose in living systems is responsible for the prevalence of apparently teleological explanations of organismic structure and behavior in biology. Although the attribution of function and purpose to living systems is an ancient practice, teleological notions are largely considered ineliminable from modern biological sciences, such as evolutionary biology, genetics, medicine, ethology, and psychiatry, because they play an important explanatory role. Historical and recent examples of teleological claims include the following: The chief function (...) of the heart is the transmission and pumping of the blood through the arteries to the extremities of the body. (Harvey 1616 [1928: 49]) The Predator Detection hypothesis remains the strongest candidate for the function of stotting [by gazelles]. (Caro 1986: 663) The geographic range of human malaria is much wider than the range of the sickle-cell gene. As it happens, other antimalarial genes take over the protective function of the sickle-cell gene in … other warm parts. (Diamond 1994: 83) Despite the substantial amount of data we now have on theropod dinosaurs, more information is necessary in order to determine the likelihood that early feathers served an adaptive function in visual display as opposed to other proposed adaptive functions such as thermoregulation. (Dimond et al. 2011: 62) The ubiquity of claims such as these raises the question: how should apparently teleological notions in biology be understood? Most post-Darwinian approaches attempt to naturalize teleology in biology, in opposition to nineteenth-century viewpoints which grounded it theologically. Nevertheless, biologists and philosophers have continued to question the legitimacy of teleological notions in biology. For instance, Ernst Mayr (1988), identified four reasons why teleological notions remain controversial in biology, namely that they are: vitalistic (positing some special ‘life-force’); requiring backwards causation (because goal-directed explanations seem to use future outcomes to explain present traits); incompatible with mechanistic explanation (because of 1 and 2); mentalistic (attributing the action of mind where there is none). A fifth complaint is that they are not empirically testable (Allen & Bekoff 1995). The current philosophical literature offers both Darwinian and non-Darwinian accounts of teleology in biology that aim to avoid these concerns. In this article, we hope to bring some clarity to the contemporary debates over the role of teleological notions in biology by sketching a taxonomy of the various accounts of biological function on offer (see Allen & Bekoff 1995 for a more comprehensive taxonomy that forms the basis of this presentation). We primarily focus on naturalistic accounts of biological function, since this is where we see the most lively and productive current debates (see, e.g., Garson 2016 for an extended survey). We also briefly discuss the notion of goal-directedness in section 2. (shrink)

This book discusses outcomes of a study by the National Institute of Mental Health, Czech Republic, examining moral integrity in the post-communist Czech-speaking environment. Chapters map the history of the Euro-Atlantic ethical disciplines from moral philosophy and psychology to evolutionary neuroscience and socio-biology. The authors emphasize the biological and social conditionality of ethics and call for greater differentiation of both research and applied psychological standards in today’s globalised world. Using a non-European ethical system – Theravada Buddhism – as a (...) case study, the authors explore the differences in English and Czech interpretations of the religion. They analyse cognitive styles and language as central variables in formatting and interpreting moral values, with important consequences for cultural transferability of psychological instruments. This book will appeal to academics and other specialists in psychology, psychiatry, sociology and related fields, as well as to readers interested in the psychology of ethics. (shrink)