What are Mental Disorders? Exploring the Role of Culture in the Harmful Dysfunction Approach

A shared problem in psychology, psychiatry, and philosophy is how to define mental disorders. Various theories have been proposed, ranging from naturalism to social constructionism. In this article, I first briefly introduce the current landscape of such theories, before concentrating on one of the most influential approaches today: The harmful dysfunction theory developed by Jerome Wakefield. It claims that mental disorders are hybrid phenomena since they have a natural basis in dysfunctional mental mechanisms, but also a cultural component in the harm experienced by human beings. Although the theory is well thought through, I will raise a critical question: Is it possible to isolate mental mechanisms as naturally evolved from cultural factors? I will argue that it is not, but that the theory could still be helpful in an understanding of mental disorders, albeit on a new footing that does not operate with a natural and a cultural component as two separate factors. I argue that we need to develop a "naturecultural" approach to psychopathology that avoids mentalism, based on the fact that human beings are irreducibly persons.

Is Another kind of Biologization Possible? On Biology and the psy Sciences

The relationship between biology and the psy disciplines (psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy) is a complex one. Many scholars have criticized how these disciplines have been biologized in the 20th century, especially since the emergence of psychopharmacology, neuroscience, and genetic research. However, biology is not just a laboratory-based science of chemical compounds, scanners, and DNA sequencing, but also a field science based on observations of organisms in their milieus. In this paper, we draw a contrast between laboratory-based biology with a focus on brains and genes, and an ecology-based biology with a focus on lives and niches. Our argument is philosophical in nature - building partly on Wittgenstein as a "philosopher of life" - to the effect that the psy sciences need not just less biologization of the former kind, but also more biologization of the latter kind to avoid a prevalent mentalism. Not least when it comes to an understanding of psychological distress, which can favorably be viewed situationally and coupled to human lives in ecological niches.

The Unique Challenge of Articulating the Behavior Analysts' Ethical Obligations and the Case of Punishment

There is a long-standing debate about the place for technical versus colloquial language in applied behavior analysis; however, this debate has yet to be considered within the context of a professional code of ethics for applied behavior analysts. In this article we discuss the limitations of technical language in articulating the applied behavior analyst's ethical commitments, illustrating this point by considering the use of the term punishment in the Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts (Behavior Analyst Certification Board, 2016). The ethical concerns regarding the use of punishment may be more accurately stated in terms of the need to avoid techniques that cause pain or discomfort rather than techniques that meet the technical definition of punishment. In summary, more consideration should be given to the use of subjective terminology in behavior analysts' ethical discussions.

Suing for Peace in the War Against Mentalism

The antimentalists' war against mentalism has not vanquished it. To examine why, we focus on two theses-mind as causal and internal-and three standard attacks against mentalism as defined by both theses: 1) mentalism implies dualism; 2) mind is unobservable, which hinders its scientific study; and 3) mentalism is impractical. These salients fail because: 1) if the mind is causal and internal, it must be material; 2) the observable/unobservable distinction is too problematic, with antimentalists equivocal about where to draw that line, with some even embracing publicly unobservable behavior as causally relevant; and 3) mentalism has not been demonstrated to be less practical than antimentalism. For the war on mentalism to succeed, stronger attacks must be devised, both scientific and philosophical. We contemplate some possibilities, while expressing doubts as to the wisdom of continuing the war. Peace may be better than war, and the resulting intellectual commerce may be good for both sides.

Relativity in Hearing and Stimulus Discrimination

What does it mean to hear a sound? What does it mean to perceive anything? Sound has no objective reality, such as "vibration." Of two people together, one may hear a sound and one may not. We know only that their actions-their judgments-differ. Such comparison underlies all discriminations. In experiments on concept learning, for example, pigeons peck when they are shown a slide containing human beings and do not peck when the slide contains no humans. The experimenters judge beforehand whether the slides contain human beings or not, and the pigeons' concept of human being is determined by the comparison between the experimenters' judgments and the pigeons' pecking or not. Similarly, to tell which of two people is hearing or deaf, an observer that can hear must judge whether their behavior corresponds with the observer's judgments. In an experiment by Lubinski and Thompson (Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 16, 627-680, 1993), in which pigeons pecked at different keys depending on which of two different drugs they had received beforehand, the experimenters judged which drug had been injected, and the pigeons' pecking corresponded to the experimenters' judgments. If two persons' judgments differ, they can only resolve the difference by deciding that one of them is mistaken. If no one is there to hear a tree fall in the forest, from the point of view of a science of behavior, it made no sound.

What should be the roles of conscious States and brain States in theories of mental activity?

Answers to the title's question have been influenced by a history in which an early science of consciousness was rejected by behaviourists on the argument that this entails commitment to ontological dualism and "free will" in the sense of indeterminism. This is, however, a confusion of theoretical assertions with metaphysical assertions. Nevertheless, a legacy within computational and information-processing views of mind rejects or de-emphasises a role for consciousness. This paper sketches a mentalistic metatheory in which conscious states are the sole carriers of symbolic representations, and thus have a central role in the explanation of mental activity and action-while specifying determinism and materialism as useful working assumptions. A mentalistic theory of causal learning, experimentally examined with phenomenal reports, is followed by examination of these questions: Are there common roles for phenomenal reports and brain imaging? Is there defensible evidence for unconscious brain states carrying symbolic representations? Are there interesting dissociations within consciousness?