Philosophical perspectives on the causes of mental illness

This lecture investigates changing attitudes and beliefs about the persistence of the self. Many revolutionary positions in philosophy – skepticism, materialism, hard determinism – have disturbing implications. By contrast, the revolutionary idea that there is no persisting self is supposed to have generally beneficial consequences. Insofar as the self does not persist, one should be more generous to others, less punitive, and have less fear of death. This talk will report recent experiments indicating that changing beliefs about the persistence of self does affect generosity and punitiveness. For attitudes about the self and death, we examined responses from Hindus, Tibetan Buddhists and Westerners; the results are complex and surprising.

The first of three public lectures which took place in Oxford in November 2015. Series title: The theoretical challenge of modern psychiatry: no easy cure The 2015 Loebel Lectures in Psychiatry and Philosophy were delivered by Professor Steven E. Hyman, director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard as well as Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology.

The second of three public lectures which took place in Oxford in November 2015. Series title: The theoretical challenge of modern psychiatry: no easy cure The 2015 Loebel Lectures in Psychiatry and Philosophy were delivered by Professor Steven E. Hyman, director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard as well as Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology.

The last of three public lectures which took place in Oxford in November 2015. Series title: The theoretical challenge of modern psychiatry: no easy cure The 2015 Loebel Lectures in Psychiatry and Philosophy were delivered by Professor Steven E. Hyman, director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard as well as Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology.

Professor Essi Viding delivers the first of two talks in the 2016 Loebel Lectures in Psychiatry and Philosophy series In these Loebel lectures Prof Essi Viding will use disruptive behaviour disorders as an illustrative example to introduce the challenges we face when we try to understand development of psychopathological outcomes. We classify disorders at the level of behaviour, yet individuals arrive at the same behavioural outcomes via multiple different developmental trajectories; a phenomenon called equifinality in the developmental psychopathology literature. A related concept is heterogeneity; we can find individuals with markedly different aetiology to their disorder within the same diagnostic category. The current diagnostic categories identify clinically disturbed functioning, but they do not identify a homogeneous group of individuals. Getting better at individuating distinct pathways to a disordered outcome is only part of the challenge. Once risk factors for a specific developmental trajectory are identified, we still need to understand their modus operandi. There is no doubt that both biology and the social environment play a role in the emergence of psychopathology, but meaningfully studying their interplay is far from trivial. What are the key biological indicators of vulnerability and resilience? How can we isolate causal mechanisms? How do we model multiple social risk factors and their impact over development?

Professor Essi Viding delivers the second of two talks in the 2016 Loebel Lectures in Psychiatry and Philosophy series In these Loebel lectures Prof Essi Viding will use disruptive behaviour disorders as an illustrative example to introduce the challenges we face when we try to understand development of psychopathological outcomes. We classify disorders at the level of behaviour, yet individuals arrive at the same behavioural outcomes via multiple different developmental trajectories; a phenomenon called equifinality in the developmental psychopathology literature. A related concept is heterogeneity; we can find individuals with markedly different aetiology to their disorder within the same diagnostic category. The current diagnostic categories identify clinically disturbed functioning, but they do not identify a homogeneous group of individuals. Getting better at individuating distinct pathways to a disordered outcome is only part of the challenge. Once risk factors for a specific developmental trajectory are identified, we still need to understand their modus operandi. There is no doubt that both biology and the social environment play a role in the emergence of psychopathology, but meaningfully studying their interplay is far from trivial. What are the key biological indicators of vulnerability and resilience? How can we isolate causal mechanisms? How do we model multiple social risk factors and their impact over development?

To complement Essi Viding's lectures, Developmental risk and resilience: The challenge of translating multi-level data to concrete interventions Eamon McCrory, Neuroscience, UCL

To complement Essi Viding's lectures, Developmental risk and resilience: The challenge of translating multi-level data to concrete interventions Dr Charlotte Cecil, Psychology, KCL

To complement Essi Viding's lectures, Developmental risk and resilience: The challenge of translating multi-level data to concrete interventions Professor Neil Levy, Philosophy, University of Oxford and Macquarie University

To complement Essi Viding's lectures, Developmental risk and resilience: The challenge of translating multi-level data to concrete interventions Prof Richard Holton, Philosophy, University of Cambridge

To complement Essi Viding's lectures, Developmental risk and resilience: The challenge of translating multi-level data to concrete interventions Dr Matthew Parrott, Philosophy, KCL

To complement Essi Viding's lectures, Developmental risk and resilience: The challenge of translating multi-level data to concrete interventions Dr Nikolaus Steinbeis, Psychology, Leiden University.

To complement Essi Viding's lectures, Developmental risk and resilience: The challenge of translating multi-level data to concrete interventions Professor Peter Dayan, Neuroscience, UCL.

The second of the 2014 Loebel Lectures in Philosophy and Psychiatry, by Professor Kenneth S Kendler Since it is unlikely that we can identify a single causal level at which we can define our disorders etiologically, I explore the dappled causal world for psychiatric disorders, through an examination of psychiatric and other literature. I will suggest three primary and progressive goals for psychiatric research: to populate our causal space, to develop multilevel causal mechanisms, and to integrate the resulting neurobiological models with psychological explanations. I will consider how we might best conceptualise psychiatric disorders, and propose a new framework for how their classification might best move forward in time.

The first of the 2014 Loebel Lectures in Philosophy and Psychiatry, by Professor Kenneth S Kendler I show how recent studies in the genetic epidemiology and molecular genetics of psychiatric and substance use disorders illustrate the complex causal pathways to mental illness. These include gene-environment interaction in the etiology of major depression (MD) and substance use and abuse, gene-social interactions in drug use, environment-environment interaction in the etiology of MD, and gene-environment covariation in the etiology of MD. I will illustrate the role of genetic factors on the comorbidity of psychiatric disorders using both twin and molecular methods, and describe complex developmental models for MD and alcohol use disorder. I will conclude with a classical example of top-down causation: the impact of human decision-making on the gene-to-phenotype pathway for psychiatric illness.