Abstract

One of psychiatry’s main difficulties is to articulate the relationship between the wide assortment of factors that may cause or contribute to psychiatric disorders. Such factors range from traumatic experiences to dysfunctional neurotransmitters, existential worries, economic deprivation, social exclusion, and genetic bad luck. While several models, including the biopsychosocial model, advocate an integrative account, they remain vague on how these different factors (causally) interact. By using insights from enactivism and its perspective on the relation between body, mind, and world, we can develop a clear integrative account of the many, heterogenous factors that may play a role in the development and persistence of psychiatric disorders. In this talk, I will present this enactive account of psychiatry and its implications for clinical practice.