Could Analytic Idealism offer a new framework for psychopathology?

Reading | Psychiatry

Dr. Antonello Veltri, MD, PhD, MSc | 2026-01-02

The conceptual impasse in psychopathology

The field of psychopathology stands at a critical crossroads. Despite decades of intensive research fuelled by substantial investment in molecular biology, neuroimaging, and genetics, our mechanistic understanding of the vast majority of mental disorders remains fragmentary and incomplete. We have accumulated a rich catalogue of neurobiological correlates—such as neurotransmitter imbalances, subtle structural brain differences, and genetic risk factors—but these findings have rarely translated into a true grasp of the aetiology (the “why”) or the core underlying nature of the phenomenal experience.

The predominant diagnostic systems, such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) [1], continue to rely predominantly on categorical classifications. These categories—e.g., Major Depressive Disorder or Schizophrenia—group together patients who share a cluster of superficial symptoms, yet often exhibit profound heterogeneity in terms of underlying biological mechanisms, treatment response, and prognosis. This nosological rigidity fails to capture the continuous, dimensional nature of psychopathological experience, leading to blurred diagnostic boundaries and a fundamental disconnect between clinical presentation and biological investigation.

These limitations are not merely academic; they constrain clinical insight and, crucially, pose significant obstacles to the development of novel and effective therapeutic interventions. Moreover, the current paradigm, largely rooted in materialist reductionism (the “brain-equals-mind” hypothesis) is proving insufficient to address the “hard problem” of consciousness and the unique nature of human subjectivity [2], leaving mental suffering reduced to mere cerebral malfunction. The urgency of this impasse thus underscores the need for innovative conceptual frameworks. Perhaps, a robust, non-reductive but analytic ontology of mind could be capable of generating alternative testable hypotheses that transcend the materialist dogma.

 

The analytic idealist framework

The idealist ontology, in its recent analytic formulation by Bernardo Kastrup [3], appears consistent with empirical evidence and seeks to explain the facts of nature more parsimoniously than both physicalism and bottom-up panpsychism. It also aspires to greater explanatory power, as it overcomes the “hard problem of consciousness” and the “combination problem” of subjects [2, 4].

Within this framework, unbound consciousness is posited as the sole ontological primitive of reality. The substance that constitutes both ourselves and the world is the same: everything is an excitation of a single field of subjectivity. Living beings, including humans, are dissociated centers of consciousness (“alters”) within this unbound universal consciousness. The universe we perceive, and all matter within it, represents the extrinsic appearance of universal consciousness dissociated from our own alter. Even our bodies and brains are the outward appearance of our conscious and seemingly unconscious mental states seen from an external perspective. The living organisms we encounter correspond to other dissociated centers of consciousness. The separation between each center and the universal mind is maintained by a dissociative boundary, analogous to cognitive dissociation described in dissociative identity disorder. Through the interaction between internal mental processes and those belonging to universal consciousness or other alters, perception becomes possible. Matter is consciousness itself, perceived from within the dissociative boundary and represented upon our perceptual screen. This dissociative hypothesis finds support in psychiatric science and within psychoanalytic tradition.

The action of universal consciousness upon dissociative boundaries has driven the evolution of organisms—or centers of consciousness—with increasingly complex perceptual strategies oriented toward fitness rather than truth. This view is fully coherent with Donald Hoffman’s Interface Theory of Perception [5], according to which our perceptual systems capture and represent the world in a coded, usable format that is evolutionarily advantageous, but not veridical. Perceptual contents—the objects, forms, and events we see around us—are merely “icons” within an interface that optimizes survival, not truth. This model has been mathematically demonstrated by Hoffman’s research group [6].

At the same time, analytic idealism can be seamlessly integrated with the currently most influential scientific theory of consciousness: Giulio Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory (IIT) [7]. The quantity of integrated information within a system (denoted Φ, “phi”) measures the degree to which that system—biological or otherwise—is conscious. Whenever phi is greater than zero, the system is privately conscious, and consciousness is not emergent from the substrate but rather a property of it. Within IIT, the construct of the irreducible intrinsic cause–effect structure of a conscious system and its elements represents the organization and dynamics of experiential states as they are in themselves. This model can be derived from the morphological and functional characteristics of substrates—or, from an idealist perspective, from the characteristics of perceptual representations: namely, how experiential states appear to external observation. In Kantian terms, IIT works for the first time in scientific history as a possible bridge between phenomena (matter) and noumena (experiential states).

 

The collapse of the boundary: psychosis and psychedelic data

How might the philosophical framework of analytic idealism be relevant to psychopathology? To approach this question, some preliminary considerations regarding some emblematic mental disorders are required. Psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia, comprise a group of severe mental illnesses characterized by a loss of contact with reality (psychosis), profoundly altering thought, perception, mood, and behavior [1]. To elucidate the possible pathogenetic mechanisms of psychosis—which for centuries have remained enigmatic—researchers have used as theoretical models the mechanisms of action of so-called psychotomimetic substances, i.e., agents capable of inducing psychotic-like symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions [8]. Particular attention has been directed toward psychedelic substances such as ketamine, phencyclidine (PCP), lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and psilocybin. Ketamine and PCP antagonize NMDA receptors on GABAergic interneurons in the cerebral cortex, causing their deactivation and thereby disinhibiting glutamatergic pyramidal neurons. LSD and psilocybin, by contrast, directly excite glutamatergic pyramidal neurons through 5-HT2A receptor activation. The resulting disinhibition or excitation of descending glutamatergic pathways modulates mesencephalic dopaminergic transmission—either directly or via GABAergic interneurons—yielding hyperactivity of the mesolimbic pathway and hypoactivity of the mesocortical pathway. Mesocortical dopaminergic hypoactivity, along with altered intracortical glutamatergic modulation, generates hypofrontality—a state of reduced metabolic and functional activity in the prefrontal cortex—considered a hallmark of schizophrenia underlying negative symptoms and cognitive disorganization. Prefrontal hypoactivity further diminishes top-down control over the thalamus, resulting in thalamic disinhibition and impaired sensory gating, which lead to excessive sensory input and perceptual noise manifesting as hallucinations and thought disorganization [9].

Research into the brain effects of psychedelics to better understand psychosis has employed functional neuroimaging in healthy volunteers after psilocybin or LSD administration. Studies by Carhart-Harris et al. in 2012 and 2016 showed that, contrary to expectations, psychedelic experiences are associated not with increased but with decreased brain activity [10, 11]. Despite phenomenologically rich and multisensory experiences, brain metabolism decreases. Moreover, these studies revealed a correlation between ego-dissolution experiences and the disintegration of the default mode network—a neural network classically associated with the metacognitive self.

Such findings are inconsistent with the materialist brain-equals-mind paradigm. Within an idealist framework, however, they can be interpreted as a temporary weakening of the dissociative boundary represented by activity within certain brain regions. Consequently, the individual consciousness—partially “reunified” with the broader field of consciousness—gains temporary access to otherwise inaccessible contents, merging with “universal mental archetypes” and perceiving non-ordinary aspects of reality (forms, symbols, structured emotions, etc.) that are not generated by the brain but belong to universal mental reality. It may thus be hypothesized that the reduction in brain activity observed in psychedelic states, as well as the hypofrontality and neurotransmitter dysregulation in schizophrenia, represent the extrinsic appearance of a failure in the dissociative boundary postulated by analytic idealism. This opens the way for a phenomenological interpretation of psychosis reminiscent of the theories of Carl Gustav Jung.

 

Archetypes literalized: the failure of symbolic integration

Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious [Editor’s note: for Jung, the “unconscious” is not phenomenally unconscious in the modern sense of lacking experiential qualities, but instead a segment of the psyche that can’t be directly accessed from the ego; it is therefore ‘unconscious’ only from the perspective of the reporting ego] suggests that the psyche is not merely private and subjective, but instead transcends the boundaries of the ego—a psychological intuition pointing toward a deeper metaphysical truth [12]. According to the analytic idealism framework, consciousness does not emerge from separate brains; rather, brains are the local appearances of dissociated centers of consciousness within a single transpersonal universal mind. Our individual minds are like vortices within a single mental ocean. Within this ocean, archetypes are recurrent forms—organizational structures of consciousness that arise spontaneously. Thus, Jungian archetypes are neither biologically inherited evolutionary residues nor mere cultural constructs, but instead reflections of the intrinsic structure of the universal mind of which all individual consciousnesses are parts. The collective unconscious thereby provides evidence that we are individualized expressions of a universal mind, sharing deep psychic structures manifesting as common symbols. Indeed, our unconscious—which contains the Jungian archetypes—is made of the very same water as the ocean of the universal mind.

In psychosis, assuming the dissociative boundary becomes unstable, the individual may experience “infiltrations” or come into contact with the broader field of universal consciousness. Hallucinations and delusions can be interpreted as archetypes and symbols of universal consciousness penetrating, without mediation, a psychic alter incapable of integrating them.

In mystical states, access to archetypal content from the universal mind occurs temporarily. In those cases, however, archetypes are integrated into a valid and organized self, which recognizes them as symbols and interprets them within spiritual or cultural frameworks. There is a sense of unity with the whole, followed by a return to a cohesive ego. In psychosis, by contrast, boundary openings are chaotic and the self is fragile and disorganized. Then, archetypal contents are invasive and remain unintegrated within the self. The experience is one of fragmentation and loss of pragmatic orientation. Infiltrations across the boundary are not symbolically processed but are “literalized”—perceived as concrete events in empirical reality—producing the bizarre and rigid character of delusions.

Auditory hallucinations, in the form of voices that comment, command, or dialogue, represent archetypes leaking through a weakened dissociative boundary; they are not “internal noise” but universal content infiltrating without symbolic mediation. They become “other-than-self” because the individual fails to recognize their transpersonal nature and interprets them as concrete agents. Delusions of reference involve the pathological belief that random events, the behaviors of others, or neutral environmental stimuli hold a special, personal significance directed at the individual (e.g., “the TV is sending me messages,” “passersby are talking about me,” “newspapers are alluding to my life”).

From an idealist perspective, universal consciousness is intrinsically one universal field. When a dissociative boundary cracks, the individual thus perceives subtle connections but reifies them, rendering them literal, concrete, and threatening. Persecutory delusions are among the most clinically recognizable manifestations of psychosis, in which the individual experiences an unshakable conviction of being watched, controlled, or persecuted by external forces. From an idealist—or Jungian archetypal—perspective, delusions are not mere errors in perceiving reality but distorted, failed attempts to confront content from the universal mind that traverses the dissociative boundary.

In this interpretation, the subject comes into contact with the oppressive force of the universal Shadow archetype. The problem arises when the psyche incarnates this universal content in historical or concrete forms. Instead of recognizing the oppressive force as a model, the individual translates it into tangible, personal reality: neighbors, intelligence agencies, aliens, or specific governmental organizations. Rather than processing or integrating the powerful and terrifying symbolic experience of the Shadow, the individual “literalizes” it, converting its transformative potential into persistent, pathological paranoia.

Grandiose or messianic delusions manifest clinically as an unshakable belief in possessing an extraordinary or superhuman identity. In the archetypal psychological reading, the individual, in this state, intercepts the archetype of the Cosmic Self, symbolizing totality and perfection. However, instead of perceiving this content as a transpersonal symbol—an experience which, for mystics or historical figures, engenders humility and service—the subject literalizes it, attributing it directly and uncritically to their personal biography. Identification with the archetype disrupts ego perspective and equilibrium, producing pathological grandiosity rather than self-integration.

Experiences of thought insertion and thought broadcasting are clinical symptoms in which the boundary between self and external world appears compromised. They are classified among Schneider’s first-rank symptoms, that is, fundamental and pathognomonic symptoms of schizophrenia [13].  Clinically, in thought insertion, the individual experiences the sense that “thoughts not my own are being placed into my mind”; in thought broadcasting, the conviction is that “my thoughts are transmitted to others, and everyone can hear them.” From the idealist perspective, our thoughts are privatized by the dissociative boundary defining our individual identity (the “alter”). When this boundary becomes compromised pathologically, alterations occur. In thought insertion, the subject directly experiences the non-personal nature of universal mind. Instead of integrating this awareness as profound insight, the fragile ego perceives the thoughts as imposed, often hostile, external inputs. In thought broadcasting, the subject correctly intuits that the mind is part of a broader field of consciousness. However, instead of experiencing this as a mystical intuition of non-separation, it is interpreted persecutorily, with the individual believing their mental privacy is violated and their thoughts are accessible to others. In summary, the broadcasting experience represents a profoundly distorted insight into mental non-separation: a genuinely lived experience in which all individual alters share the same “universal sea of consciousness,” yet one that is translated into concrete, anxious terms, thereby producing a pathological phenomenon.

 

Depression: the rigidity and isolation of the alter

Shifting to another class of mental disorders, it is particularly instructive for this discussion to briefly consider the most prevalent and disabling condition worldwide: Major Depressive Disorder, which is clinically characterized by a constellation of symptoms including persistent depressed mood, anhedonia, psychomotor retardation, excessive guilt or feelings of worthlessness, recurrent thoughts of death, and disturbances in sleep and appetite [1]. Beyond these observable clinical features, depression carries profound existential implications, manifesting as a pervasive loss of vitality, meaning, and connection with the world. From the idealist–Jungian standpoint, depression can be understood as the experiential manifestation of a radical rupture in the relationship between the ego and universal consciousness. Unlike psychosis, which can involve a weakening of ego boundaries, or mystical states, which entail a temporary and often liberating dissolution of self into a larger consciousness, depression is characterized by a rigid, impermeable boundary. The ego becomes sequestered, cut off from the flow of universal mind, producing a profound sense of isolation and alienation. In this state, consciousness contracts inward, resulting in a subjective experience of emptiness, desolation, and a loss of purpose.

Intriguingly, emerging therapeutic approaches appear to be consistent with this idealist interpretation. Low doses of psychedelic substances, including ketamine, LSD, and psilocybin, have proven effective in the treatment of pharmacoresistant major depression [14, 15]. In the framework of the idealist model, these agents may act by transiently increasing the permeability of the dissociative boundary. By partially dissolving the rigid separation between ego and universal consciousness, they facilitate renewed access to meaning, vitality, and connectedness—essentially the reversal of the ego contraction inherent in depressive states. The phenomenological effects of these compounds, which often include heightened emotionality, vivid imagery, and a sense of expanded awareness, provide striking conceptual coherence with the idealist perspective. In sum, this reading of depression frames it as more than a biochemical or behavioral disorder; it is instead an existential rupture, a narrowing of consciousness that isolates the individual from the rich, interconnected fabric of mind. Psychedelic treatments, by temporarily softening this barrier, exemplify how a deep understanding of the phenomenology of consciousness can inform and potentially revolutionize therapeutic strategies.

 

Conclusions and implications

In confronting the epistemic challenges posed by the “hard problem of consciousness” or by the etiopathogenesis of mental disorders, we must cultivate epistemic humility. The progress achieved within physicalist premises has illuminated certain correlates of our objects of study, but never the “why” of the phenomena themselves—nor will it ever.

With equal humility, we should be prepared to transcend the dominant physicalist paradigms on which our training has been built, thereby expanding the horizons of inquiry. Such a shift could yield novel interpretive frameworks capable of generating new testable hypotheses, while also restoring to mental disorders their phenomenological richness and imaginative depth—qualities that risk being lost when reduced to mere cerebral malfunction.

If analytic idealism were to be taken seriously as a conceptual framework for psychiatry, its implications would not remain merely theoretical. By reframing mental disorders as disturbances in the structure and dynamics of dissociative boundaries within consciousness, the model could inspire new diagnostic and therapeutic paradigms.

From a diagnostic standpoint, psychopathological assessment might expand beyond the mapping of behavioral symptoms and neurochemical correlates. Neuroimaging, computational modeling, and phenomenological interviews could be integrated to quantify the “flexibility” or “permeability” of these boundaries, providing measurable correlates of mental health. Psychotherapeutic, pharmacological, and neurostimulation techniques could be reconceptualized as interventions aimed at restoring an optimal degree of functioning of the dissociative boundary—neither excessive rigidity (as in depressive isolation) nor excessive permeability (as in psychotic disintegration). The recent success of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy might then be reinterpreted not as “neurochemical resetting,” but as the temporary loosening and reconfiguration of dissociative boundaries under controlled and integrative conditions.

Furthermore, by situating individual suffering within a broader, non-reductive ontology of mind, this framework fosters a more compassionate and phenomenologically attuned psychiatry. In this sense, analytic idealism offers not only a metaphysical hypothesis, but also an epistemic and therapeutic horizon: one in which the study and treatment of mental disorders become a means of exploring the structure of consciousness itself. Perhaps, in this light, the task of psychiatry is not merely to repair the broken machinery of the brain, but to reweave the consciousness of patients in order to help the universal mind keep observing itself through them. This is, unmistakably, a borderland where philosophy, physics, and neuroscience converge. And like all borderlands, it possesses the full fascination that a domain integrating phenomena and noumena deserves.

 

References

[1] American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing.

[2] Chalmers, D. (2008). The hard problem of consciousness. In M. Velmans & S. Schneider (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to consciousness. Boston, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

[3] Kastrup, B. (2019). The idea of the world. Winchester, UK: Iff Books.

[4] Chalmers, D. (2016). The combination problem for panpsychism. In G. Brüntrup & L. Jaskolla (Eds.), Panpsychism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

[5] Hoffman, D. D., Singh, M., & Prakash, C. (2015). The interface theory of perception. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 22(6), 1480–1506. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-015-0890-8

[6] Prakash, C., Stephens, K. D., Hoffman, D. D., et al. (2021). Fitness beats truth in the evolution of perception. Acta Biotheoretica, 69(3), 319–341. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10441-020-09400-0

[7] Tononi, G. (2012). Integrated information theory of consciousness: An updated account. Archives italiennes de biologie, 150(2-3), 56–90. https://doi.org/10.4449/aib.v149i5.1388

[8] Stahl, S. M. (2018). Beyond the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia to three neural networks of psychosis: Dopamine, serotonin, and glutamate. CNS Spectrums, 23(3), 187–191. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1092852918001013

[9] Andreasen, N. C. (1997). The role of the thalamus in schizophrenia. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 42(1), 27–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/070674379704200104

[10] Carhart-Harris, R. L., Erritzoe, D., Williams, T., et al. (2012). Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109(6), 2138–2143. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1119598109

[11] Carhart-Harris, R. L., Muthukumaraswamy, S., Roseman, L., et al. (2016). Neural correlates of the LSD experience revealed by multimodal neuroimaging. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113(17), 4853–4858. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1518377113

[12] Jung, C. G. (1991). The archetypes and the collective unconscious. London, UK: Routledge.

[13] Schneider, K. (1959). Klinische Psychopathologie. Stuttgart, Germany: Thieme.

[14] Huang, C., Hu, L., Liu, W., et al. (2025). Efficacy and safety of esketamine on major depression, postpartum depression and perioperative depression: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Molecular Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-025-03320-6

[15] Ko, K., Kopra, E. I., Cleare, A. J., & Rucker, J. J. (2023). Psychedelic therapy for depressive symptoms: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 322, 194–204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2022.09.168