International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
August 1, 2021
Sanneke De Haan
63 citations
The biopsychosocial model holds that physiological, psychological, and social processes each uniquely contribute to psychiatric disorders, but it fails to explain how such different kinds of processes can causally interact. An enactive approach resolves this by viewing cognition as embodied and embedded in the world, with living itself involving basic sense-making. Adopting an organizational rather than linear notion of causality allows understanding of how biopsychosocial processes interrelate in the development of psychiatric disorders.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
June 1, 2016
Alex Hankey, Rashmi Shetkar
24 citations
A recently proposed theory defines health as optimal regulation, which in biological systems corresponds to 'criticality'—a state in complexity biology that maximizes information processing and sensitivity to external stimuli. Criticality appears universal in biology and may optimize regulation, linking health to a scientific concept. In brain cortices and mental health, criticality is the condition that makes self-awareness possible and is strengthened by meditation practices leading to pure consciousness, a content-free state of mind. From this, healthy function of the brain cortex, its sensitivity, and consistency of response to external challenges should improve through techniques that transcend the original focus introduced during practice. Evidence for this is reviewed.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
December 1, 2024
Helena D Aicher, Max Wolff, Uwe Herwig
10 citations
The renewed interest in psychedelics for treating mental health disorders is often called the "Psychedelic Renaissance," but this article argues it does not represent a true paradigm shift in psychiatry. Instead, the authors contend that current developments are better understood as enhancements to existing therapeutic frameworks, building on extensive mid-20th-century research. They emphasize integrating psychedelics within a broader bio-psycho-social model, combining pharmacological, psychological, and contextual factors. The therapeutic potential is described as working as "nonspecific amplifiers" of psychological processes rather than introducing entirely new mechanisms. The article cautions against "psychedelic exceptionalism" and overselling psychedelics as a revolutionary treatment, advocating for a balanced, integrative approach.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
December 1, 2024
Sean P Goldy, Peter S Hendricks, Dacher Keltner et al.
8 citations
This review discusses how psychedelics produce acute subjective effects, including positive emotions such as awe and joy, and outlines the science of positive emotions. Despite a rich literature on distinct emotions and their different correlates and consequences, distinct emotions in psychedelic science remain understudied. Understanding the role of specific positive emotions in psychedelic experiences could help clarify the connection between the acute subjective effects of psychedelics and their therapeutic outcomes, such as decreased depression, anxiety, and substance misuse.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
January 1, 2025
Marianna de Abreu Costa, Alexander Moreira-Almeida
7 citations
Dualism—the view that mind and brain are separate—remains common, even among mental health professionals, though it declines with age, likely due to generational shifts rather than personal maturation. Academic training often embeds physicalist, reductive views emphasizing biological causes such as gene expression and neurologic alterations. Radical determinism aligned with physicalism can diminish perceptions of responsibility, agency, and free will, affecting personal autonomy and legal systems by portraying individuals as less responsive to rehabilitation and more prone to repeat behaviors. In mental health, these views shape understanding of disorder origins, treatment approaches, patient self-agency, and stigma. Biogenetic models reduce blame but lower perceptions of self-control and increase perceptions of unpredictability.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
December 1, 2024
Zofia Kozak, Christopher W T Miller
7 citations
Psychedelic compounds are gaining interest as potential treatments for psychiatric disorders. Although most psychiatrists will not directly administer these drugs, psychedelic research offers lessons that can improve conventional care. Central to this is the concept of 'set and setting'—the importance of mindset and environment for therapeutic outcomes. New findings suggest mechanistic overlap between psychedelics and serotonergic antidepressants: both modulate neurotrophins, enhance neuroplasticity, and reopen critical learning periods, shaped by environmental context. The paper argues that integrating insights from psychedelic research, particularly set and setting, can improve depression treatment in traditional psychiatric settings by optimizing non-pharmacological factors such as high-quality psychotherapy.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
December 1, 2024
Roman Palitsky, Nicholas K Canby, Nicholas T Van Dam et al.
6 citations
Research on adverse effects (AEs) of psychedelics has been limited, leading to underspecified profiles and potential undercounting. This article argues that meditation-related AE research, which shares phenomenological and contextual features with psychedelic AEs, offers valuable insights. An integrative review of both fields is presented, recommending that meditation AEs serve as a comparator condition. The authors propose adopting detailed, comprehensive, user-informed, impact-based, standardized, unbiased, and representative measures of AEs, along with examining factors that influence their impacts and trajectories, to advance psychedelic AE research.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
January 1, 2025
Marina Weiler, David J Acunzo
4 citations
Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) may offer clues about the mind-body relationship. Four interpretations are examined: OBEs as products of neural dysfunction, consistent with mind and brain being aspects of the same reality; anecdotal and experimental evidence that the mind can perceive distant locations, suggesting non-local consciousness; OBEs during abnormal brain function raising the possibility of mind independent of brain; and subjective feelings of survival or OBEs near clinical death supporting the survival hypothesis. The paper argues that OBEs are relevant to debates on the mind-body problem by presenting evidence for each view.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
January 1, 2025
Alexander Moreira-Almeida
4 citations
A 'Pragmatic interactionist' framework proposes that the mind exists and functions beyond the brain, survives bodily death, and the brain acts as a tool and filter for mind manifestation. Based on evidence from near-death, out-of-body, mediumistic experiences, and memories of previous lives, the framework expands naturalism and the empirical base to include anomalous experiences. Research proposals include studies of mind-over-brain phenomena, free will beyond extreme social and biological factors, enhanced mentation with a dysfunctional brain, veridical hallucinations, extracerebral memory, and early personality differences between monozygotic twins. This working hypothesis aims to enlarge observational and analytical capacities to better understand the human mind.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
January 1, 2023
Fabio Carezzato, Ilana Falcão de Arruda, Caio Petrus Monteiro Figueiredo et al.
4 citations
Gender and sex differences shape how people use MDMA and how it affects them. Women often use MDMA to cope with negative emotions or self-medicate after traumatic life events, while men are more likely to start using due to peer pressure or sensation-seeking. Women report greater anxiety, adverse effects, and negative side effects from MDMA, and they face higher risks of sexually transmitted infections because of altered mental states and reduced condom use. Women may be more susceptible to hyponatremia but less vulnerable to MDMA-induced hyperthermia. Prenatal MDMA exposure may cause motor delays in infants. MDMA-assisted psychotherapy shows promise for treating PTSD, especially in female subgroups. More research is needed to develop tailored treatments.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
January 1, 2025
Bruno Angeli-Faez, Bruce Greyson, Pim van Lommel
3 citations
Near-death experiences (NDEs) during cardiac arrest likely occur when the patient is unresponsive and the brain is severely compromised, not in early arrest or after resuscitation. There is no evidence that cortical electrical activity recorded during dying or CPR is linked to NDEs; such recordings may be artifacts. Cardiac arrest halts blood flow to the brain, causing loss of cortical electrical activity within 10–30 seconds. During CPR, brain activity may remain absent or severely disturbed. Because NDEs appear at the moment the brain is severely compromised, this may support the idea that consciousness can persist beyond the brain.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
January 1, 2025
Gregory Shushan
3 citations
Near-death experiences (NDEs) appear across cultures and historical periods, yet descriptions differ widely. Scholarly debates often frame NDEs as either a universal human phenomenon or entirely culturally constructed. This article examines how the apparent universality of NDEs has been used to support both survival and materialist hypotheses. It also explores what kind of afterlife might be philosophically conceivable if NDE narratives are taken as genuine reflections of afterlife experiences, especially given their diversity.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
January 1, 2025
Taís Oliveira Silva, Kathryn Levy, Christopher W Kerr
3 citations
Dying patients often report vivid dreams, visions, or sudden lucid episodes even as their clinical and mental condition declines. A review of 20 studies found that end-of-life dreams and visions occur in cognitively intact patients, are vividly recalled, frequently involve deceased loved ones, and provide meaning, comfort, and acceptance, suggesting ongoing psychological and spiritual activity. Terminal lucidity, though rarer, involves a sudden return of clarity and communication in severely cognitively impaired individuals, challenging the idea that consciousness depends solely on brain function. These experiences point to a possible dissociation between mind and brain during dying.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
January 1, 2025
Marjorie Woollacott, Marina Weiler
3 citations
Consciousness is normally constrained by neural filters—sensory receptors, the ascending reticular activating system, the thalamus, the default mode network, and left hemisphere language centers—that restrict perception to a narrow range of energy frequencies, structure space and time, and prioritize internal narratives. When activity in these filters is reduced or absent, as in near-death experiences, deep meditation, or psychedelic use, people may access wider awareness, transcend time and space, and experience ego dissolution. This expanded state might allow the mind to access intuitive, nonlocal information beyond the five senses, suggesting vast untapped potential for human awareness.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
December 1, 2024
David S. Mathai
3 citations
Dissociative therapies are increasingly studied for psychiatric use, but key clinical questions remain. This review identifies six areas: whether functional unblinding skews efficacy data; how therapeutic effects differ from recreational drug relief; how the concept of dissociation applies to these drugs; whether subjective drug effects predict outcomes; how dissociative and classic psychedelics compare; and the need for prescribing and deprescribing guidelines as these treatments become more common.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
January 1, 2025
Marianna de Abreu Costa, Alexander Moreira-Almeida
2 citations
Mediums claim to communicate with the deceased or non-material beings. Controlled studies show they can provide accurate information that cannot be explained by normal sensory means or inference. This review examines conventional explanations—fraud, sitter gullibility, wishful thinking, chance, mental disorder, and unconscious personification—alongside the non-conventional hypothesis that the mind exists beyond the brain. The paper critically analyzes evidence from mediumship studies that supports a mind independent of the physical brain, aiming to inform the understanding of consciousness and the mind-brain problem.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
January 1, 2025
Humberto Schubert Coelho
2 citations
The Western worldview has paradoxically adopted a counterintuitive theory that prioritizes objects over minds, despite direct conscious experience. This shift, rooted more in cultural history than sound philosophy or science, has reinforced dogmatic dualism—a model with little rational support. The article critiques dualism's major inconsistencies, arguing they ultimately bolster materialism. Psychiatrists, lacking philosophical training, struggle with the metaphysical aspects of their patients, hindering medical progress and understanding of the mind. The author emphasizes how this philosophical diversion has harmed medicine and suggests philosophical education could remedy it.
International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England)
January 1, 2025
Jim B Tucker
1 citation
For 60 years, researchers have systematically studied over 2,500 cases worldwide in which young children report memories of a previous life. In the strongest cases, children have provided details that proved strikingly accurate for a specific deceased individual, sometimes living far from the child's family. This overview presents illustrative case reports, reviews the types of evidence suggesting an anomalous connection between the child and the deceased, and considers possible explanations for the phenomenon.