Posted by Estella on August 31, 2006, at 23:06:17
In reply to Re: Biopsychosocial vs Biological Reductionism, posted by Estella on August 31, 2006, at 22:43:29
AND...
Should different mental illnesses be explained from different levels or should neurobiology always be the aim?
Does it depend on the question?
I mean... If we ask 'why do white western women have higher incidence of anorexia than women from pakistan' it seems that the socio-cultural level is fundamental (which is just to say most appropriate). If we ask 'why does this particular white western woman have anorexia compared to that white western woman' then the fundamental level of explanation would seem to be... either psychological or cognitive or neuro-biological (I don't want to commit myself to which but my point is that the socio-cultural level wouldn't be fundamental for that question).
Should we aim for explanatory pluralism?
What is the relationship between the different levels?
Do we want multi-level models for all of the disorders?
Are some levels more relevant to some disorders?The modelling stuff is interesting too...
There is a huge literature on models and the relationship that models bear to the world / to the real world phenomena.
Stuff on whether models are abstract objects (mathematical ones) or fictional entities (strings of propositions / descriptions).
Do we compare models directly to the world?
Do we explain phenomena by appealing to the model? If we do this latter thing then what is the relationship between the world and the model?
Are there objective facts about the 'best' model of the phenomena or is the best model relative to our interests etc?Some people think that what psychiatry needs to do is come up with a model of functioning (with reference to cognitive neuropsychology) and then explain various symptoms of the various disorders by appealing to breakdowns in the model. You will be able to read off places to interveane by viewing the model. But that means that models are going to be very abstract entities (or fictions) indeed. What is the relationship between me (as an instance of a disorder) and the model that describes the disorder?
At what level of generality should models be pitched?
Will they be useful (if there is too much individual variation then intervention points on the model might not map too well onto intervention points within the individual)
Lots of questions... No clear answers... Time to do some work ;-)
poster:Estella
thread:680731
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060825/msgs/681922.html