Physicalism is a program for building a unified system of knowledge about the world on the basis ... more Physicalism is a program for building a unified system of knowledge about the world on the basis of the view that everything is a manifestation of the physical aspects of existence. In the book I attempt a systematic and comprehensive exploration of the philosophical foundations of this program. This investigation includes: the core ideas, motivating values, and presuppositions of physicalism; the constraints upon an adequate formulation of physicalist doctrine; the epistemological and modal status, the scope, and the methodological roles of physicalist principles. I review and evaluate major objections to the program, and consider its significance for philosophy, science, society, and individual persons. I also examine the relations between physicalism and other philosophical positions, such as realism, empiricism, and relativism, and suggest that physicalism is compatible with a tolerant pluralism in the philosophical, cultural, and personal domains.
In this book we attempt to synthesize the growing body of biomedical and psychosocial research on... more In this book we attempt to synthesize the growing body of biomedical and psychosocial research on the nature and treatment of severe mental illness and to present an innovative framework for planning and implementing effective rehabilitation services. An integrative model of case formulation is described that conceptualizes the individual's recovery on multiple levels: physiological, cognitive, interpersonal, behavioral, and environmental. We draw on outcome research and extensive clinical experience to identify interventions of known effectiveness, including psychopharmacology, functional assessment, behavioral analysis, and cognitive therapies. In outlining a comprehensive approach to assessment, treatment, and progress evaluation, we also attempt to provide practical recommendations for program development and staff training.
Capturing the complexity of human behavior has been a recurring theme in the Nebraska Symposium o... more Capturing the complexity of human behavior has been a recurring theme in the Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. The contributors to this volume describe contemporary approaches to the modeling of complex cognitive and behavioral processes, ranging from molecular to molar phenomena. Although the essays reflect a wide range of theoretical and epistemic perspectives, they all incorporate complex frameworks of dynamic, systemlike relationships involving perception, learning, concept formation, emotion, motivation, intention, behavior, and the social context in which behavior occurs.
We human beings often have trouble controlling our own behavior. As persons we hope to make soun... more We human beings often have trouble controlling our own behavior. As persons we hope to make sound and prudent choices, but often we do not. Addictive behavior is one of the most imprudent and unsound forms of behavior in which we may engage. It threatens not just our happiness but our health, and not just our happiness and health, but the welfare and well-being of other persons to whom we are responsible. It represents a form of loss of self-control as well as a variety of other sorts of cognitive impairment and behavioral deficits. Are we nonetheless responsible for being or at least becoming addicted? Are we responsible for our behavior while in the grip of an addiction? Are we responsible for breaking the cycle of addictive behavior once it has begun? And, what responsibilities do other persons have to help us? It is one thing to be mired in an addictive behavior pattern. It is another to take responsibility for it. The papers in this volume address the many ways in which our understanding of addiction impacts upon these questions of responsibility as they arise in personal, research, clinical, legal, and philosophical contexts.
This book is unique in that unlike a book just on addiction or just on responsibility and self-control, it is on BOTH topics and on how they are bound together. The one, addiction, we claim, cannot be fully understood without the other, responsibility. The book is also unique because of its distinguished set of interdisciplinary contributors, from theorists to clinicians, from neuroscientists, psychologists, and psychiatrists to philosophers and legal scholars.
APA PsycNET Our Apologies! - The following features are not available with your current Browser c... more APA PsycNET Our Apologies! - The following features are not available with your current Browser configuration. - alerts user that their session is about to expire - display, print, save, export, and email selected records - get My ...
This chapter begins with the assumptions of the present volume that a crisis exists in psychiatri... more This chapter begins with the assumptions of the present volume that a crisis exists in psychiatric research and that research concerning mental illness has entered a period of “extraordinary science.” After clarifying certain key features of both the crisis and extraordinary science, we examine the reasons for the crisis so as to identify some major challenges facing mental illness research during this period. We identify four broad classes of challenge: ideological, methodological, clinical, and transitional. We then articulate a version of the innovative research program of computational psychiatry that introduces novel representational and methodological resources and holds promise for meeting some of the various challenges. Finally, we demonstrate this promise using some concrete examples of research in this area concerning Parkinson’s Disease and Schizophrenia.
History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences, 2015
It is widely agreed that the DSM-IV categorical framework (and its predecessors) have a number of... more It is widely agreed that the DSM-IV categorical framework (and its predecessors) have a number of problems (e.g., questionable reliability in the field, questionable validity, heterogeneity, unexplained comorbidity, an unsound concept of mental disorder) that have compromised its utility in research concerning mental illness. At the root of these problems is a substantial “lack of fit” between the DSM framework and the domain of mental illness. With the publication of DSM-5, it is appropriate to ask whether the process of revision leading from DSM-IV to DSM-5 has been sufficiently responsive to the problems with DSM-IV to justify continued use of DSM categories in either basic research concerning psychopathology or more applied clinical research. In this paper, I argue that the revision process has not been responsive to these problems and that, hence, DSM-5 categories ought not to be used in research concerning mental illness. Rather, alternative approaches should be developed, and I conclude with a discussion of three such alternatives.
Physicalism1 is usually conceived of as a doctrine which expresses a certain view of the world, r... more Physicalism1 is usually conceived of as a doctrine which expresses a certain view of the world, roughly the view that everything bears one or another important ontological or explanatory relation to physical entities of one sort or another. For example, typical physicalist theses ...
We argue that dominant research approaches concerning mental illness, which are centered on tradi... more We argue that dominant research approaches concerning mental illness, which are centered on traditional categories of psychiatric classification as codified in the DSM-IV, have serious empirical, conceptual, and foundational problems. These problems have led to a classification scheme and body of research findings that provide a very poor map of the domain of mental illness, a map that, in turn, undermines clinical and research pursuits. We discuss some current efforts to respond to these problems and argue that the DSM-5 revision process is not very promising, whereas the NIMH Research Domain Criteria initiative and some recent research in cognitive neuroscience fares better, although the latter remains potentially compromised by residual influences of the DSM-based approach. We conclude with some lessons and suggestions for the pursuit of alternative research pathways.
Find the secret to improve the quality of life by reading this addiction and responsibility. This... more Find the secret to improve the quality of life by reading this addiction and responsibility. This is a kind of book that you need now. Besides, it can be your favorite book to read after having this book. Do you ask why? Well, this is a book that has different characteristic with others. You may not need to know who the author is, how well-known the work is. As wise word, never judge the words from who speaks, but make the words as your good value to your life.
... and Spaulding 1994; Poland and Spaulding, forthcoming; Horwitz 2002; Whitaker 2002). ... The ... more ... and Spaulding 1994; Poland and Spaulding, forthcoming; Horwitz 2002; Whitaker 2002). ... The social functions of conflict. New York: The Free Press. Hochschild, Arlie Russell.(1997). The time bind: When work becomes home and home becomes work. New York: Metropolitan. ...
The aim of this paper is to examine the usefulness of the Machamer, Darden, and Craver (2000) mec... more The aim of this paper is to examine the usefulness of the Machamer, Darden, and Craver (2000) mechanism approach to gaining an understanding of explanation in cognitive neuroscience. We argue that although the mechanism approach can capture many aspects of explanation in cognitive neuroscience, it cannot capture everything. In particular, it cannot completely capture all aspects of the content and significance of mental representations or the evaluative features constitutive of psychopathology.
i.e. souls. A broader defence of the coherence of the notion of the soul (so understood) unfolds ... more i.e. souls. A broader defence of the coherence of the notion of the soul (so understood) unfolds with a determined effort to take on the difficulties traditionally associated with the idea of body-soul interaction, and with the demands to vindicate the notion of soul by providing adequate criteria of individuation and persistence. Appendix 1 concerns the abstract-concrete distinction. The overview taken there is notable in standing apart from almost every recent view in conceiving the distinction as at once important, exhaustive, exclusive and rather straightforwardly drawn. The intriguing proposal is, swiftly, that concreteness is constituted by instantiating a category that could have an instance that has spatial or temporal parts, and abstractness is nonconcreteness. Appendix 2 offers a defence of an Aristotelian account of
Psychiatric research is in crisis. We highlight efforts to overcome current challenges by focusin... more Psychiatric research is in crisis. We highlight efforts to overcome current challenges by focusing on the emerging field of computational psychiatry, which might enable the field to move from a symptom-based description of mental illness to descriptors based on objective computational multidimensional functional variables. We survey recent efforts toward this goal and describe a set of methods that together form a toolbox to aid this research program. We identify four levels in computational psychiatry: (a) behavioral tasks that index various psychological processes, (b) computational models that identify the generative psychological processes, (c) parameter-estimation methods concerned with quantitatively fitting these models to subject behavior by focusing on hierarchical Bayesian estimation as a rich framework with many desirable properties, and (d) machine-learning clustering methods that identify clinically significant conditions and subgroups of individuals. As a proof of prin...
Cooley law review / the Thomas M. Cooley Law School
... we examine how several legal processes (eg, class action litigation, conditional release, adv... more ... we examine how several legal processes (eg, class action litigation, conditional release, advanceddirectives, legal guardianship ... of the key technologies includes the following: rehabilitative pharmacotherapy, rehabilitative skill training, contingency management, neurocognitive ...
With the widespread recognition that a crisis exists in research concerning mental illness, there... more With the widespread recognition that a crisis exists in research concerning mental illness, there is a need to both understand why the crisis exists and to develop approaches for pursuing novel and more progressive research agendas. In this paper we argue that the current crisis exists in large part because research centered around DSM diagnostic categories has been undermined by the artificial character of those categories and by a lack of adequate strategies and representational resources for engaging the various features of the domain of mental illness such as: causal ambiguity, multi-dimensional complexity, hierarchical organization, non-linear dynamic interactivity, individual variation, and personal perspective and agency. We will proceed to outline the main assumptions, tools, and strategies of a research program that has been dubbed “computational psychiatry” by its originators and we will demonstrate the promise of this research program with some concrete examples. We conclude with some observations concerning the challenges facing researchers in this area (e.g., heterogeneity, comorbidity, the “task impurity problem”, sampling, measurement, grouping, research design strategies) and the prospects of computational psychiatry for meeting those challenges.
Physicalism is a program for building a unified system of knowledge about the world on the basis ... more Physicalism is a program for building a unified system of knowledge about the world on the basis of the view that everything is a manifestation of the physical aspects of existence. In the book I attempt a systematic and comprehensive exploration of the philosophical foundations of this program. This investigation includes: the core ideas, motivating values, and presuppositions of physicalism; the constraints upon an adequate formulation of physicalist doctrine; the epistemological and modal status, the scope, and the methodological roles of physicalist principles. I review and evaluate major objections to the program, and consider its significance for philosophy, science, society, and individual persons. I also examine the relations between physicalism and other philosophical positions, such as realism, empiricism, and relativism, and suggest that physicalism is compatible with a tolerant pluralism in the philosophical, cultural, and personal domains.
In this book we attempt to synthesize the growing body of biomedical and psychosocial research on... more In this book we attempt to synthesize the growing body of biomedical and psychosocial research on the nature and treatment of severe mental illness and to present an innovative framework for planning and implementing effective rehabilitation services. An integrative model of case formulation is described that conceptualizes the individual's recovery on multiple levels: physiological, cognitive, interpersonal, behavioral, and environmental. We draw on outcome research and extensive clinical experience to identify interventions of known effectiveness, including psychopharmacology, functional assessment, behavioral analysis, and cognitive therapies. In outlining a comprehensive approach to assessment, treatment, and progress evaluation, we also attempt to provide practical recommendations for program development and staff training.
Capturing the complexity of human behavior has been a recurring theme in the Nebraska Symposium o... more Capturing the complexity of human behavior has been a recurring theme in the Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. The contributors to this volume describe contemporary approaches to the modeling of complex cognitive and behavioral processes, ranging from molecular to molar phenomena. Although the essays reflect a wide range of theoretical and epistemic perspectives, they all incorporate complex frameworks of dynamic, systemlike relationships involving perception, learning, concept formation, emotion, motivation, intention, behavior, and the social context in which behavior occurs.
We human beings often have trouble controlling our own behavior. As persons we hope to make soun... more We human beings often have trouble controlling our own behavior. As persons we hope to make sound and prudent choices, but often we do not. Addictive behavior is one of the most imprudent and unsound forms of behavior in which we may engage. It threatens not just our happiness but our health, and not just our happiness and health, but the welfare and well-being of other persons to whom we are responsible. It represents a form of loss of self-control as well as a variety of other sorts of cognitive impairment and behavioral deficits. Are we nonetheless responsible for being or at least becoming addicted? Are we responsible for our behavior while in the grip of an addiction? Are we responsible for breaking the cycle of addictive behavior once it has begun? And, what responsibilities do other persons have to help us? It is one thing to be mired in an addictive behavior pattern. It is another to take responsibility for it. The papers in this volume address the many ways in which our understanding of addiction impacts upon these questions of responsibility as they arise in personal, research, clinical, legal, and philosophical contexts.
This book is unique in that unlike a book just on addiction or just on responsibility and self-control, it is on BOTH topics and on how they are bound together. The one, addiction, we claim, cannot be fully understood without the other, responsibility. The book is also unique because of its distinguished set of interdisciplinary contributors, from theorists to clinicians, from neuroscientists, psychologists, and psychiatrists to philosophers and legal scholars.
APA PsycNET Our Apologies! - The following features are not available with your current Browser c... more APA PsycNET Our Apologies! - The following features are not available with your current Browser configuration. - alerts user that their session is about to expire - display, print, save, export, and email selected records - get My ...
This chapter begins with the assumptions of the present volume that a crisis exists in psychiatri... more This chapter begins with the assumptions of the present volume that a crisis exists in psychiatric research and that research concerning mental illness has entered a period of “extraordinary science.” After clarifying certain key features of both the crisis and extraordinary science, we examine the reasons for the crisis so as to identify some major challenges facing mental illness research during this period. We identify four broad classes of challenge: ideological, methodological, clinical, and transitional. We then articulate a version of the innovative research program of computational psychiatry that introduces novel representational and methodological resources and holds promise for meeting some of the various challenges. Finally, we demonstrate this promise using some concrete examples of research in this area concerning Parkinson’s Disease and Schizophrenia.
History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences, 2015
It is widely agreed that the DSM-IV categorical framework (and its predecessors) have a number of... more It is widely agreed that the DSM-IV categorical framework (and its predecessors) have a number of problems (e.g., questionable reliability in the field, questionable validity, heterogeneity, unexplained comorbidity, an unsound concept of mental disorder) that have compromised its utility in research concerning mental illness. At the root of these problems is a substantial “lack of fit” between the DSM framework and the domain of mental illness. With the publication of DSM-5, it is appropriate to ask whether the process of revision leading from DSM-IV to DSM-5 has been sufficiently responsive to the problems with DSM-IV to justify continued use of DSM categories in either basic research concerning psychopathology or more applied clinical research. In this paper, I argue that the revision process has not been responsive to these problems and that, hence, DSM-5 categories ought not to be used in research concerning mental illness. Rather, alternative approaches should be developed, and I conclude with a discussion of three such alternatives.
Physicalism1 is usually conceived of as a doctrine which expresses a certain view of the world, r... more Physicalism1 is usually conceived of as a doctrine which expresses a certain view of the world, roughly the view that everything bears one or another important ontological or explanatory relation to physical entities of one sort or another. For example, typical physicalist theses ...
We argue that dominant research approaches concerning mental illness, which are centered on tradi... more We argue that dominant research approaches concerning mental illness, which are centered on traditional categories of psychiatric classification as codified in the DSM-IV, have serious empirical, conceptual, and foundational problems. These problems have led to a classification scheme and body of research findings that provide a very poor map of the domain of mental illness, a map that, in turn, undermines clinical and research pursuits. We discuss some current efforts to respond to these problems and argue that the DSM-5 revision process is not very promising, whereas the NIMH Research Domain Criteria initiative and some recent research in cognitive neuroscience fares better, although the latter remains potentially compromised by residual influences of the DSM-based approach. We conclude with some lessons and suggestions for the pursuit of alternative research pathways.
Find the secret to improve the quality of life by reading this addiction and responsibility. This... more Find the secret to improve the quality of life by reading this addiction and responsibility. This is a kind of book that you need now. Besides, it can be your favorite book to read after having this book. Do you ask why? Well, this is a book that has different characteristic with others. You may not need to know who the author is, how well-known the work is. As wise word, never judge the words from who speaks, but make the words as your good value to your life.
... and Spaulding 1994; Poland and Spaulding, forthcoming; Horwitz 2002; Whitaker 2002). ... The ... more ... and Spaulding 1994; Poland and Spaulding, forthcoming; Horwitz 2002; Whitaker 2002). ... The social functions of conflict. New York: The Free Press. Hochschild, Arlie Russell.(1997). The time bind: When work becomes home and home becomes work. New York: Metropolitan. ...
The aim of this paper is to examine the usefulness of the Machamer, Darden, and Craver (2000) mec... more The aim of this paper is to examine the usefulness of the Machamer, Darden, and Craver (2000) mechanism approach to gaining an understanding of explanation in cognitive neuroscience. We argue that although the mechanism approach can capture many aspects of explanation in cognitive neuroscience, it cannot capture everything. In particular, it cannot completely capture all aspects of the content and significance of mental representations or the evaluative features constitutive of psychopathology.
i.e. souls. A broader defence of the coherence of the notion of the soul (so understood) unfolds ... more i.e. souls. A broader defence of the coherence of the notion of the soul (so understood) unfolds with a determined effort to take on the difficulties traditionally associated with the idea of body-soul interaction, and with the demands to vindicate the notion of soul by providing adequate criteria of individuation and persistence. Appendix 1 concerns the abstract-concrete distinction. The overview taken there is notable in standing apart from almost every recent view in conceiving the distinction as at once important, exhaustive, exclusive and rather straightforwardly drawn. The intriguing proposal is, swiftly, that concreteness is constituted by instantiating a category that could have an instance that has spatial or temporal parts, and abstractness is nonconcreteness. Appendix 2 offers a defence of an Aristotelian account of
Psychiatric research is in crisis. We highlight efforts to overcome current challenges by focusin... more Psychiatric research is in crisis. We highlight efforts to overcome current challenges by focusing on the emerging field of computational psychiatry, which might enable the field to move from a symptom-based description of mental illness to descriptors based on objective computational multidimensional functional variables. We survey recent efforts toward this goal and describe a set of methods that together form a toolbox to aid this research program. We identify four levels in computational psychiatry: (a) behavioral tasks that index various psychological processes, (b) computational models that identify the generative psychological processes, (c) parameter-estimation methods concerned with quantitatively fitting these models to subject behavior by focusing on hierarchical Bayesian estimation as a rich framework with many desirable properties, and (d) machine-learning clustering methods that identify clinically significant conditions and subgroups of individuals. As a proof of prin...
Cooley law review / the Thomas M. Cooley Law School
... we examine how several legal processes (eg, class action litigation, conditional release, adv... more ... we examine how several legal processes (eg, class action litigation, conditional release, advanceddirectives, legal guardianship ... of the key technologies includes the following: rehabilitative pharmacotherapy, rehabilitative skill training, contingency management, neurocognitive ...
With the widespread recognition that a crisis exists in research concerning mental illness, there... more With the widespread recognition that a crisis exists in research concerning mental illness, there is a need to both understand why the crisis exists and to develop approaches for pursuing novel and more progressive research agendas. In this paper we argue that the current crisis exists in large part because research centered around DSM diagnostic categories has been undermined by the artificial character of those categories and by a lack of adequate strategies and representational resources for engaging the various features of the domain of mental illness such as: causal ambiguity, multi-dimensional complexity, hierarchical organization, non-linear dynamic interactivity, individual variation, and personal perspective and agency. We will proceed to outline the main assumptions, tools, and strategies of a research program that has been dubbed “computational psychiatry” by its originators and we will demonstrate the promise of this research program with some concrete examples. We conclude with some observations concerning the challenges facing researchers in this area (e.g., heterogeneity, comorbidity, the “task impurity problem”, sampling, measurement, grouping, research design strategies) and the prospects of computational psychiatry for meeting those challenges.
Psychiatric research is in crisis. We highlight efforts to overcome current challenges, focusing ... more Psychiatric research is in crisis. We highlight efforts to overcome current challenges, focusing on the emerging field of computational psychiatry, which might enable us to move from a symptombased description of mental illness to descriptors based on objective computational multidimensional functional variables. We survey recent efforts towards this goal, and describe a set of methods that together form a toolbox to aid this research program. We identify four levels in computational psychiatry: (i) Behavioral tasks indexing various psychological processes; (ii) computational models that identify the generative psychological processes; (iii) parameter estimation methods concerned with quantitatively fitting these models to subject behavior, focusing on hierarchical Bayesian estimation as a rich framework with many desirable properties; and (iv) machine learning clustering methods which identify clinically significant conditions and subgroups of individuals. As a proof of principle we apply these methods to two different data sets. Finally, we highlight challenges for future research.
The domain of mental illness is a face of the domain of human functioning, which includes phenome... more The domain of mental illness is a face of the domain of human functioning, which includes phenomena involving individual life problems, distress, disability, deviance, failures to perform social functions, and maladaptation, in which mental and behavioral capacities are centrally involved. This is not a formal definition, but rather an informal way to specify a human domain of interest. This domain is a target of scientific research, clinical practices of various forms, social practices (e.g., law, business, social policy, education, affiliations, etc.) and substantial personal interest. Such purposes and interests call out for informed means of conceptualization and intervention, although it should not be assumed that one approach will effectively serve all contexts equally well.
Defenders of the DSM claim that DSM-III (American Psychiatric Association 1980) was an important ... more Defenders of the DSM claim that DSM-III (American Psychiatric Association 1980) was an important revolution in psychiatric classification and that the classification system is an invaluable tool in clinical practice and scientific research. Critics, on the other hand, argue that neither of these claims is defensible, that the DSM is profoundly flawed, and that DSM-III ushered in three decades of non-progressive research and misguided clinical practice. I agree with this critical position and will argue below that the DSM approach to classification is, indeed, profoundly flawed, as are the practices based upon it. But more broadly, a crisis exists in contemporary mental health practice:
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Books by Jeff Poland
This book is unique in that unlike a book just on addiction or just on responsibility and self-control, it is on BOTH topics and on how they are bound together. The one, addiction, we claim, cannot be fully understood without the other, responsibility. The book is also unique because of its distinguished set of interdisciplinary contributors, from theorists to clinicians, from neuroscientists, psychologists, and psychiatrists to philosophers and legal scholars.
Papers by Jeff Poland
This book is unique in that unlike a book just on addiction or just on responsibility and self-control, it is on BOTH topics and on how they are bound together. The one, addiction, we claim, cannot be fully understood without the other, responsibility. The book is also unique because of its distinguished set of interdisciplinary contributors, from theorists to clinicians, from neuroscientists, psychologists, and psychiatrists to philosophers and legal scholars.