TITLE:
Mood Psychopathologies: An Integrated Complexity-Based Interpretation
AUTHORS:
Massimo Cocchi, Lucio Tonello, Fabio Gabrielli
KEYWORDS:
Complexity; Major Depression; Bipolar Disorder; Fatty Acids; SOM; Biology; Phenomenology
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.5 No.3,
March
26,
2014
ABSTRACT:
If the mechanistic-reductionist cognitive approaches have been
characterised by the metaphor of the “edifice”, of the solid Cartesian rock,
all the forms of knowledge founded on complexity theory have been characterised
by the metaphor of the “network”, of thinking in relationships, in a dynamic,
fluid, open manner. In the field of mental illness, this means setting aside
both the organicist paradigm and the pseudo-phenomenological, “sentimentalistic”,
and therefore ideological, paradigm, in order to have an integrated view of
biological objectiveness and humanistic psychotherapy. That is to say, an expression of diverse interrelated
contributions from the various disciplines (psychiatry, psychology,
biochemistry, anthropology, quantum physics, mathematics, philosophy). The
observer thus becomes a builder of models, a manager of complexity, giving
treatment the character of a truly empathic relationship. This is all the more
so where distressing pathologies are involved, such as Major Depression (MD)
and Bipolar Disorder (BD), caput mortuum of psychiatry, because the absence of cogent biological markers seriously
compromises every form of therapy. Hence the identification of a biological
platform (fatty acids of platelets) as a starting point for a correct
classification of MD with respect to BD.