Agency, embodiment and enactment in psychosomatic theory and practice.
Laurence J Kirmayer, Ana Gómez-carrillo
Medical humanities June 1, 2019 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1136/medhum-2018-011618 via PubMed
Summary
Psychosomatic explanations in medicine, psychiatry, and psychology create a social grey zone with ambiguities about agency, causality, and moral responsibility, reflecting deep-seated Western dualism. Illnesses seen as psychologically mediated are often viewed as less real or legitimate. New forms of dualism appear in philosophical attacks on Engel's biopsychosocial approach and in the NIMH's Research Domain Criteria program, which favors exclusively biological explanations.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Psychosomatic explanation involves a social grey zone of ambiguities about agency and moral responsibility, rooted in Western dualism, and an integrative multilevel ecosocial approach can renew the biopsychosocial model for person-centred medicine and psychiatry. |
Abstract
In this paper, we examine some of the conceptual, pragmatic and moral dilemmas intrinsic to psychosomatic explanation in medicine, psychiatry and psychology. Psychosomatic explanation invokes a social grey zone in which ambiguities and conflicts about agency, causality and moral responsibility abound. This conflict reflects the deep-seated dualism in Western ontology and concepts of personhood that plays out in psychosomatic research, theory and practice. Illnesses that are seen as psychologically mediated tend also to be viewed as less real or legitimate. New forms of this dualism are evident in philosophical attacks on Engel's biopsychosocial approach, which was a mainstay of earlier psychosomatic theory, and in the recent Research Domain Criteria research programme of the US National institute of Mental Health which opts for exclusively biological modes of explanation of illness. We use the example of resignation syndrome among refugee children in Sweden to show how efforts to account for such medically unexplained symptoms raise problems of the ascription of agency. We argue for an integrative multilevel approach that builds on recent work in embodied and enactive cognitive science. On this view, agency can have many fine gradations that emerge through looping effects that link neurophenomenology, narrative practices and cultural affordances in particular social contexts. This multilevel ecosocial view points the way towards a renewed biopsychosocial approach in training and clinical practice that can advance person-centred medicine and psychiatry.