Comparing Two Enactive Perspectives on Mental Disorder

Abstract

Within the philosophy of psychiatry and the study of psychopathology more broadly, there is rapidly growing interest in embodied, embedded, and enactive approaches to mental disorder. Two recent approaches have attempted to provide overarching frameworks, considering the conceptual nature of mental disorder itself from an embodied, embedded, and enactive view. These are de Haan’s ‘Enactive Psychiatry,’ and Nielsen’s ‘Embodied, Embedded, and Enactive Psychopathology,’ These two frameworks were developed essentially in parallel. This article compares the two frameworks, exploring their similarities as well as three key differences. Some relative strengths and weaknesses are explored. It is argued the two frameworks are largely compatible, do different work to one another, and are best understood as complimentary. Related to the differences explored, three recommendations are made for the continued development of an embodied, embedded, and enactive conceptualization of mental disorder.

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