Emotions and Feelings in Psychiatric Illness

A recent resurgence of interest in emotion amongst philosophers has paralleled the explosion of work on emotions in psychology and neuroscience. Great advances have also been made regarding the part played by emotion in psychiatric illnesses. However, there is a paucity of interdisciplinary work on emotion. Some recent philosophical work has been informed and inspired by the findings of psychologists and neuroscientists. Yet relatively little of this work has considered psychopathologies of emotion in any detail. Some psychologists and neuroscientists studying emotion have been drawing ideas and conceptual frameworks from philosophers. But there has been little interaction between psychiatrists and philosophers on this topic.

Interdisciplinary work on emotion has been enormously beneficial to all concerned and has led to greater understanding of the nature of emotions. In addition, a conceptual repertoire has been constructed that is to a certain extent shared. Issues that have been addressed include the relationship between feeling and emotion, the bodily processes involved in emotion, the functions of emotion and the relationship between cognitive and non-cognitive dimensions of emotion. Despite these fruitful interdisciplinary exchanges, there are still many disagreements between researchers in the different disciplines and there is much to be learned about the nature and roles of emotion. For example, there is a strong tradition in both philosophy and psychology that emphasises the cognitive aspects of emotion, whilst recent work in neuroscience emphasises a conception of emotion that ascribes greater significance to bodily, affective responses. However, recent work in psychiatry indicates that bodily feelings are not merely perceptions of bodily states; they are also integral to experiences of entities outside of the body, including people. There is also some debate as to what is meant by these various terms, and different researchers sometimes use them in different ways. Whilst philosophers speak of 'cognition' and 'feeling', for example, psychologists tend to refer to 'appraisal' and 'affect'.

A survey of the psychiatric literature suggests emotions have all sorts of roles that have not been adequately addressed by philosophers and psychologists. For example, emotions play a role in the recognition of familiar people, give us a sense of others as 'people', provide a sense of reality and familiarity, constitute both a sense of self and the self/non-self boundary, organise our experience in terms of practical purposes and structure our thinking. Psychiatry will also benefit from further interaction with philosophers and psychologists, for there is a lack of clarity in the psychiatric literature as to what emotions actually are. Hence the analytic tools, concepts, methods and empirical data accumulated by philosophers and psychologists comprise a valuable resource for conceptual clarification and refinement of empirical claims in psychiatry.

Thus the investigators propose a series of workshops, involving philosophers, psychologists and psychiatrists, which will foster fresh dialogue, lead to significant and original research publications and serve as the basis for an enduring research network. The premise of our project is that the developing body of ongoing interdisciplinary research will be enhanced considerably by greater collaboration between philosophers, psychiatrists, and psychologists. Specifically, the proposed interdisciplinary project aims to cast new light on the nature and role of emotion and feeling. Questions to be examined include: What are emotions? What are emotional feelings? How can the study of pathological feelings elucidate the nature of 'normal' feelings and vice versa? What is the relationship between bodily feelings and emotional states? How and when do we become aware of our emotions? To what extent can we control our emotions, and how? How do others' emotions affect our own?