An integral conceptualization of psychosis
Psychosis October 27, 2025 DOI: 10.1080/17522439.2025.2574920 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that Ken Wilber's four-quadrant framework offers a more suitable integrative paradigm for conceptualizing psychosis than the biopsychosocial model because it systematically embraces subjective, objective, individual, and collective domains, thereby doing justice to psychosis's transformative potential and addressing epistemic injustice. The author also notes drawbacks, including the framework's firm subjective-objective demarcation and the risk that more complex versions foreclose attributing transformational significance to psychosis. |
Abstract
ABSTRACT Background Academic conceptualizations of psychosis often overlook its transformational potential. By situating it against a horizon of influential theoretical and conceptual models of psychosis including such integrative paradigms as the biopsychosocial model, this paper outlines American integral theorist Ken Wilber’s four-quadrant framework.
Methods: By drawing on several of Wilber’s primary works the author systematically explicates the major conceptual features of his four-quadrant framework before then using it to undertake an integral conceptualization of psychosis.
Results: Wilber’s framework can attune theorists as well as clinicians in the mental health field to the epistemological domains that are typically underemphasized in the conceptualization of psychosis. What Wilber calls an integral embrace is essential not only if the mental health field is going to do justice to the fact that psychosis can be transformative but also if it is going to effectively address the ethical issue of epistemic injustice. Because it insists on the embrace of individual and collective domains as well as subjective and objective in a disciplined manner, Wilber’s framework has advantages over the biopsychosocial model.
Discussion: Its systematic and structured nature as well as the fact that it valorizes multiple epistemic domains makes Wilber’s framework a suitable integrative paradigm for psychosis. Potential drawbacks include its drawing of a firm line of demarcation between subjective and objective as well as the fact that more complex versions of it possibly foreclose the possibility of imputing transformational significance to psychosis. Wilber’s framework has pragmatic usefulness in clinical and research settings.