The mind-body problem

The Mind-Body Problem is a philosophical problem that dates back in the west, at least, to antiquity. In short, it is the question of how the mind and body influence each other, and in the field of medicine, it would be the study of how states of mind affect the arising of disease in the body and vice-versa.

In the 17th century, the French philosopher Descartes conceived that the mind and body were separate phenomena, the mind was viewed as a subjective phenomenon and the body seen as material and therefore made from matter. Out of this mind-body dualism (Cartesian dualism) arose the current easy and hard problems of consciousness, which are (in my opinion) still unanswered questions in science about how subjective experience within consciousness relate to objective material phenomenon.

If directed towards poorly understood diseases, such inquiries would have immense potential. In a national study conducted in Denmark (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/1696348)
researches concluded that autoimmune diseases are linked with higher rates of mental health disorders. More interestingly is that the article explores the possible links between how autoimmune disease could cause mental health issues, but only briefly mentions the possibility of mental health issues causing autoimmune disease.

I do understand the ethics here, as a clinician, we have to be safe, and also follow the evidence base. However, I have worked with many clients who strongly feel that as they addressed deep patterns in their psyche, it relieved or improved their physical ailments.

Working within this field requires a balance between solid ethics, a practice in evidence-based medicine and also an open-mindedness towards possibility. To preference towards one side of this spectrum, can potentially not allow people to explore their health with autonomy and ways to improve their wellbeing.

The above study highlights the question of causality between mind and body. However, if we take a step back from the earlier Cartesian dualism, it is apparent that even with Descarte's inquiry, there is already the conceptual separation of subjective and objective.

If the mind and body are not seen as separate, to begin with, then the study of causality is not between two distinct entities but more of the effects of parts onto a whole.

But this is where the focus on identifying dogmatic beliefs is paramount in modern science. In my opinion, if science has an enemy, it would be dogma.

So the question could be, why the mind and body are taken to be separate things in the first place? This is likely because of the way the conventional mind separates phenomenon into material and immaterial.

The body is said to be material, physical and stable, whereas the mind is seen to be immaterial, non-physical and ephemeral. When the science of biology first emerged the consensus scientific view at this time was that the world was material (matter) and that subjective experiences were not part of the natural world. However, science moved on from seeing the world as purely physical, especially in physics. There is, however, poor facilitation of ideas between the separate branches of the sciences. So although physics was exploring the world on a quantum level, Biology held steadfast that the natural world was material even though this conceptual underpinning was being questioned.

The study of the mind also requires introspective observation. The pioneering American psychologist William James argued introspective observation must always be the first and foremost method by which to study these matters, for this is the sole access for observing mental phenomena directly.

However, for multiple reasons, introspection lost validity as a scientific tool, and the immaterial was taken to not truly indeed exist unless it can be given a physical counterpart in time and space.

This created a problem. The mind was paramount is peoples experience as a source of suffering and mental illness. However, introspection was not seen as a valid scientific tool, and the mind itself was not a material entity that could be studied.

Hence it could be out of convenience that to study the mind and use objective scientific tools the mind had to be given a physical location and the mind-body problem had to be "solved".

With the creation of neurobiology, some scientists quickly stated that the mind is the brain and that neurobiology can, therefore, be the study of the mind. However, it is my opinion that there is no actual evidence that this is the case and it is this dogmatic reductionism towards materialism within science that hinders scientific progress and the ability for inquiry and study of the effects of mental states into disease and dysfunction.