Natural Kinds of mental disorder

Abstract

Are mental disorders (autism, ADHD, schizophrenia) natural kinds or socially constructed categories? What is at stake if either of these two views prove to be true? This paper offers a qualified defense for the view that there may well be natural kinds of mental disorder but argues that the implications of this claim are generally overestimated. Especially concerns about over-inclusiveness of diagnostic categories and medicalisation of abnormal behaviour are not addressed by the debate. To arrive at these conclusions the paper opens with a discussion of kind formation in science, followed by an analysis how to think about natural kinds. Seven principled and empirically informed objections to the possibility of natural kinds of mental disorder are considered and each rejected. The paper ends with a reflection on diagnostics of mental health problems that don’t fall into natural kinds