Integration and Causality in Enactive Approaches to Psychiatry

Shaun Gallagher

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2022.870122

Integration and Causality in Enactive Approaches to Psychiatry

Front Psychiatry. 2022 Jul 4:13:870122. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.870122. eCollection 2022.

Author

Shaun Gallagher^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Philosophy, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, United States.
² School of Liberal Arts, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia.

Abstract

In this paper I address what has been called the integration problem in psychiatry. This problem is tied to conceptions of causality and explanatory levels in our understanding of mind. I take an interdisciplinary enactive perspective to develop a 3-fold method for exploring the dynamics of integration, based on a concept of dynamical causation and a non-hierarchical (level-free) notion of gestalt. I also consider Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) as a test case.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder; causality; integration; levels; psychiatry.