Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T10:32:15.663Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How does psychotherapy work? A case study in multilevel explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2015

Rebecca Roache
Rebecca Roache*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Politics, and International Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, United Kingdom. [email protected]://rebeccaroache.weebly.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Multilevel explanations abound in psychiatry. However, formulating useful such explanations is difficult or (some argue) impossible. I point to several ways in which Lane et al. successfully use multilevel explanations to advance understanding of psychotherapeutic effectiveness. I argue that the usefulness of an explanation depends largely on one's purpose, and conclude that this point has been inadequately recognised in psychiatry.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 38 , 2015 , e23
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Frith, C. D. (1992) The cognitive neuropsychology of schizophrenia. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Ghaemi, S. N. (2010) The rise and fall of the biopsychosocial model. Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Kendler, K. S. (2008) Explanatory models for psychiatric illness. American Journal of Psychiatry 165(6):695–702.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, K. S. (2012) The dappled nature of causes of psychiatric illness: Replacing the organic–functional/hardware–software dichotomy with empirically based pluralism. Molecular Psychiatry 17(4):377–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, K. S. & Campbell, J. (2009) Interventionist causal models in psychiatry: Repositioning the mind-body problem. Psychological Medicine 39(6):881–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kendler, K. S. & Campbell, J. (2014) Expanding the domain of the understandable in psychiatric illness: An updating of the Jaspersian framework of explanation and understanding. Psychological Medicine 44(1):1–7.Google Scholar
Klein, S. B., Cosmides, L., Tooby, J. & Chance, S. (2002) Decisions and the evolution of memory: Multiple systems, multiple functions. Psychological Review 2:306–29.Google Scholar
Marmot, M. (2005) Remediable or preventable social factors in the aetiology and prognosis of medical disorders. In: Biopsychosocial medicine, ed. White, P., pp. 39–58. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar