Work Philosophy
A new concept of mental health, for all people
Need
The difficulty in relating the physiological and experiential dimensions in psychiatric disorders remains a difficult integration problem in mental health. Both the reductionist models and the models based on the mind-body duality offer a biased response to psychological suffering. Hence, a theoretical framework that integrates the heterogeneous phenomena that may be at stake in the development and persistence of psychiatric disorders is needed. Moreover, this framework should allow us to understand the consequences of the different forms of intervention.
Concept
For this reason, I refer to the enactive perspective of mental health, according to which all mental activity (i.e., perception, emotion, thought, behaviour) generates meaning (is sense making). The sense making is based on the interaction between Person and Environment. We speak about Person referring to his/her Body (that is, his/her physiological processes), his/her Experiences and his/her Reflective Capacity (that is, his/her ability to reason about himself). We speak of Environment referring to the world (that is, to the socio-cultural and material context inherent to the person).
By approaching “mental illness” as a disorder of “sense making”, we can approach psychological suffering in a holistic and integrated way, taking into account the four fundamental and interdependent dimensions that contribute to mental disorder: the experiential, physiological, socio-cultural and existential. *
Therapy
My specific intervention focuses primarily on the physiological dimension of the mental disorder, from the integrative perspective defined above. Identifying certain symptoms allows me to consider the opportunity to resort to pharmacological interventions.
We know that using certain molecules in certain psychiatric disorders involves interfering with and modulating brain neurochemistry, with a series of expected effects (i.e. based on scientific evidence) that can help alleviate mental suffering in certain conditions. Abandoning the concept that lies behind the disease-based pharmacological language (“antidepressants”, “anxiolytics”) and using a terminology based on drug effect (“selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors”, “GABAergics”), it proposes to offer a more specialized, objective and respectful treatment. **
On the other hand, this supposes teamwork that relies on the expertise of different collaborators, in order to address mental suffering from different perspectives also considering the experiential, socio-cultural and existential dimensions that are at stake in the disordered sense making. Being fully aware that we work with the unique sense of each person is of great importance.
My work philosophy is inspired and based on books and articles that you can browse in the References section. In more detail:
* The concept elaborated in this section is inspired by and refers to models already elaborated and proposed by different research groups. Specifically, it is based on the elaboration proposed by Sanneke De Haan, exposed in the book “Enactive Psychiatry”.
** The concept elaborated in this section is inspired by and refers to models already elaborated and proposed by different research groups. Specifically, it is based on the elaboration proposed by Johanna Moncrieff, exposed in the book “The myth of the chemical cure: a critique of psychiatric drug treatment”.