NATALIA WASHINGTON portrait
  • Adjunct Assistant Professor, Internal Medicine
  • Assistant Professor, Philosophy
801-581-8161

Research Statement

I am a philosopher of psychiatry, and to me this means two important things. First, my research is part of a rich tradition in philosophy of science that allies the critical and conceptual tools of analytic philosophy with the empirical tools of the sciences of the mind—specifically psychology and cognitive neuroscience. It is, at its core, an interdisciplinary endeavor. Second, the motivating force behind my research is centered around the critical project of understanding and promoting mental well-being. The questions I seek to answer are How do human minds work? What does it mean for our minds to work well, or badly? And, what is the nature of the discipline of ‘psychiatry’—as both science and evaluative system—that seeks to undertake this project?
I have had the opportunity to pursue several avenues of this research program, including work on implicit social cognition, on the taxonomization of mental disorders, and on the influence of culture on psychiatry. In the future, I plan to extend my work by examining how our concepts of agency and well-being inform thinking about mental health. Ultimately, I hope my work is of use both to laypersons and clinicians who are directly affected by mental illness, as well as to the theoreticians who seek to improve psychiatric thinking and practice.

Publications

  • Natalia Washington, Cristina Leone & Laura Neimi (2022). Neuroscience and Mental Illness. MIT Press. Published, 12/01/2022.
  • Dominic Murphy & Natalia Washington (2022). Mental Illness and Agency. Oxford. Published, 04/04/2022.
  • Valerie Tiberius, Natalia Washington, K. Sullivan (ed) & R. Chang (ed) (2020). Practical Reason and Social Science Research. Vol. Routledge Handbook of Practica. Routledge. Published, 12/30/2020.
  • Natalia Washington, C. Leone, Laura Niemi, W. Sinnott-Armstrong (ed) & F. De Brigard (ed) (2019). Neuroscience and Mental Illness. Vol. Neuroscience and Philosophy. Cambridge. Accepted, 12/15/2019.
  • Dominic Murphy, Natalia Washington, J. Doris (ed) & M. Vargas (ed) (2019). Mental Illness and Agency. Vol. The Oxford Handbook of Moral P. Oxford. Accepted, 10/01/2019.
  • Natalia Washington (2018). Contextualism as a Solution to Paternalism in Psychiatric Practice. Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology. Published, 12/01/2018.