Athena Rong

Athena Rong is a second year Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) student taking Navigating Psychopathology as an optional module.

Project Summary

Have we brought our philosophical biases into psychiatry? There has been a prevailing dominance of the biomedical model and its emphasis on pharmacological treatment in psychiatry. By solely focusing on mental disorders as brain disorders, the biomedical model’s approach hinges on medical facts. Yet, the validity behind the model’s sole focus on eliminating presumed biological abnormalities like chemical imbalances in the brain is questionable. Using case studies of mental disorders, thought experiments and growing externalist psychiatry literature, this paper argues that the biomedical model’s notions of neurological dysfunctions are necessary, but insufficient for clinical assessments. The implicit internalist bias in the biomedical model focuses exclusively on neurological dysfunctions and ignores certain external contexts. This disregard for critical external factors behind mental disorders potentially leads medical practitioners to ignore a holistic approach and prescribe a more generalised drug-based treatment. Without acknowledging externalism and maintaining an overly internalist paradigm, there is a significant risk of reducing individuals to their neurological dysfunctions and ignoring the context in which mental illnesses exist. This paper proposes to look at externalism not as a threat to the current biomedical model, but as a rejection of the harmful internalist bias within current psychiatry. Ultimately, there is a need to widen psychiatry’s mindset to regard external considerations. Developing a more comprehensive perspective reduces the risk of medicalisation and the negative side effects of heavy pharmacological approaches. Furthermore, it opens the possibility of supporting a ‘biopsychosocial’ approach to psychiatry