Intruders in the Mind Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Thought Insertion

Thought insertion is the delusion that one's thoughts are not one's own, which causes people to believe that external agents have inserted ideas or thoughts into their minds. More prevalent in schizophrenia, thought insertion has been regarded as one of the most complex psychiatric symptoms. It is easy to see why it is such an intriguing phenomenon, as it blurs our understanding of some of the most fundamental aspects of our mind. Typically, discussions around thought insertion have tended to be featured in the context of philosophical examinations of broader issues in philosophy and psychiatry, or treated as a footnote to discussions of more prominent topics such as motor agency or the structure of phenomenal consciousness. For this reason, discussion of the phenomenon is incomprehensive and scattered throughout the literature, making it difficult to keep track of. Intruders in the Mind is an interdisciplinary attempt to bring together high-quality contributions to some of the most fundamental debates arising from the comprehensive study of thought insertion. Making thought insertion its central topic, this compilation gathers a series of essays that, taken as a whole, offer a broad and thoughtful approach to the clinical, phenomenological, conceptual, and experimental aspects of the systematic study of the phenomenon.

1 - When is the Thought Mine and When is it Not? A Personal View on Inserted Thoughts
2 - Delusional Beliefs and Thought Insertion
3 - Self-Disturbances, Perceptual Anomalies, and Physicality: Towards a Multimodal Model of Thought Insertion
4 - Thought Insertion, Mental Affordances, and Affectivity
5 - Soundless Voices and Inserted Thoughts: A Distinction that makes a Difference
6 - On Philosophy and Schizophrenia: The Case of Thought Insertion
7 - Thought insertion and auditory hallucinations: Phenomenological and Mechanistic Commonalities
8 - Schizophrenia and the Error-Prediction Model of Thought Insertion
9 - A Hybrid Account of Thought Insertion
10 - Delusions of Thought Insertion: A Multifactorial Approach
11 - Thought Insertion as a Persecutory Delusion
12 - Experimental Approaches to Understanding Thought Insertion
13 - What can magic and science tell us about the experience of thought insertion?
14 - Generalized Internal Model of Mental Representations: Thought Insertion, Mental Agency, and the Cerebellum
15 - Metacognitive Treatment in Patients with Though Insertion
16 - Thought Insertion and Commitment
17 - Thought insertion and The Ontology of Thinking

Pablo López-Silva is Professor of Psychology at the School of Psychology, and Research Professor at the Institute of Philosophy of the Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile. Pablo López-Silva holds a Licentiate in Psychology, a Professional Qualification as Psychologist, a Postgraduate Diploma in Attachment Theory and Early Cares (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso), and a Postgraduate Diploma in Higher Education Teaching (Universidad de Valparaíso). Pablo López-Silva is Master in Research and PhD in Philosophy (University of Manchester, UK). His areas of research are Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Psychology, Psychopathology, and Neuroethics. Tom McClelland is a lecturer in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. He is also a researcher on the Inner Speech in Action project based at UPF Barcelona. Tom McClelland's research explores the philosophy and science of perception, thought and the self. He is currently working on how mental action is guided by the perception of affordances and how patterns of individual difference in perceptual experience can constitute social injustices. He is interested in how insights from psychology and philosophy of mind can be marshalled to address social problems.