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Evolutionary psychiatry and depression: testing two hypotheses

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Abstract

In the last few decades, there has been a genuine ‘adaptive turn’ in psychiatry, resulting in evolutionary accounts for an increasing number of psychopathologies. In this paper, I explore the advantages and problems with the two main evolutionary approaches to depression, namely the mismatch and persistence accounts. I will argue that while both evolutionary theories of depression might provide some helpful perspectives, the accounts also harbor significant flaws that might question their authority and usefulness as explanations.

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Notes

  1. Actually it would be more precise to use the term quasi-proximate explanation. Maintaining that an imbalance at brain level causes something at mental level, only qualifies as an explanation if one, like some biologically oriented psychiatrists, embraces an epiphenomenalist outlook. However, from the point of view of physicalism, which has become the consensus view in philosophy, identifying a proximate cause, entails indentifying a physical reason for brain-level imbalance.

  2. The view that there has been an increase in depressive illness during the last decades is controversial. Taking seriously epidemiological theory and the conceptual shifts that the definition of mental disorder (particularly depression) has undergone in the last decades, the uncertainties with such statements are immense. However, whether this is actually the case or not does not play any role for my argument.

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Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Laurence J. Kirmayer and Jennifer Radden for helpful comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrück, Albrechtstraße 28, 49069, Osnabrück, Germany

    Somogy Varga

  2. Center for Subjectivity Research, University of Copenhagen, Njalsgade 140-142, 2300, Copenhagen S, Denmark

    Somogy Varga

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Varga, S. Evolutionary psychiatry and depression: testing two hypotheses. Med Health Care and Philos 15, 41–52 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-010-9305-9

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