Are All Mental Disorders Affective Disorders?

Summary

All mental disorders are fundamentally affective disorders, according to an argument that draws on enactivist philosophy and ecological psychology. Enactivism characterizes mental disorders as disordered sense-making, which is inherently affective. The affordance-based approach emphasizes that affectivity discloses action possibilities. Both sense-making and affordance perception rely on affectively driven selective attention. The argument is illustrated by showing that language disturbances in schizophrenia and context blindness in autism stem from disruptions to affectivity and selective attention, impairing engagement with relevant affordances.

Study at a glance

Abstract

A growing number of theorists have looked to the enactivist approach in philosophy of mind or the affordance-based approach from ecological psychology to make sense of a wide variety of phenomena; some theorists believe that these theoretical accounts can offer rich insights about the nature of mental disorders, their etiology, and their characteristic symptoms. I argue that theorists who adopt such approaches also should embrace the further claim that all mental disorders are affective disorders. First, enactivist accounts of mental disorder push us toward such a view insofar as they characterize such conditions in terms of disordered sense-making and conceptualize sense-making as fundamentally affective. Second, conceptions of mental disorder that emphasize affordance perception likewise motivate such a view insofar as they highlight the role that affectivity plays in the disclosure of action possibilities. What is more, both sense-making and affordance disclosure are best understood as processes of selective attention and responsiveness that rely heavily on affectivity. To illustrate and support these claims, I discuss how (a) language disturbances in schizophrenia and (b) “context blindness” in autism both result from disruptions to affectivity and selective attention that make it difficult for subjects to engage effectively with relevant affordances.