This article evaluates the heuristic potential of EnvironMentalism–a novel integrative framework in psychopathology derived from the principles of Material Engagement Theory (MET). The authors argue that the dominant neuroreductionist and biopsychosocial models face an insurmountable "integration problem" in reconciling biological, psychological, and social factors. EnvironMentalism proposes to resolve this by radically reconceptualizing the ontology of the mental. It posits the mind not as a brain-bound entity but as an emergent property of the brain-body-environment continuum, and reconceptualizes personality not as a pre-given essence but as a processual and distributed effect of continuous transactions between the organism and the material world. Consequently, a mental disorder is understood as a persistent maladaptive pattern of interaction within this continuum, rather than an internal pathology. The methodology of the study comprises a critical analysis of the foundations of contemporary psychopathology, focusing on the crisis of the representationalist paradigm, followed by the explication and systematization of the core principles of Material Engagement Theory (MET) and the concept of EnvironMental Health. The heuristic power of the concept is demonstrated through a case study of dementia, which is reframed not merely as a neurodegenerative process but as a consequence of the disintegration of the personality's "material scaffolding" – its biographical objects and stable environment. The Discussion and Conclusions section examines the principles of environmentalist therapy, the prospects for evolving this framework into a coherent research program capable of offering ecology-grounded solutions to psychiatry, and its inherent limitations, including challenges of operationalization and the need for longitudinal validation studies. The scientific novelty of the research lies in its comprehensive critical evaluation and theoretical systematization of the heuristic potential of EnvironMentalism for reconceptualizing psychopathology and for informing novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.
Tikhonov et al. (Thu,) studied this question.