A fresh look at mental illness
Ask Assistant Professor of Psychology Joshua Buckholtz to explain his research into mental disorders, and he’ll likely start with a question that’s got more to do with basic medicine: When is the flu appendicitis? The answer, of course, is never. Each is associated with a very specific — and nonoverlapping — set of biological causes and effects. Understanding what these are, Buckholtz explained, allows doctors to discriminate between the two with near-perfect accuracy. Unfortunately, Buckholtz said, the same cannot be said for mental disorders. “We have very well worked-out classification criteria for physical disorders like the flu and appendicitis,” Buckholtz said. “There is an assumption that we have equally well worked-out and valid classification criteria for mental disorders, but in recent years people have come to realize that this model of strict categorical separation of mental disorders simply doesn’t reflect what we see in the clinic.” According to Buckholtz, meeting the diagnostic criteria...