Open and transparency

Considering recent developments in science and raised issues regarding the replication crisis, the quality of reporting of the results, we believe that it is essential for a scientist to be transparent and open about every stage of their research process. Although we do not have a strict policy about open science practices, we encourage people working with us to share everything: Open data, materials, and publications. Additionally, we encourage our members to pre-register their studies with detailed descriptions of hypotheses and methods that will be used in the research.

Encourage Early-career researchers

For us, providing support and career development opportunities for early-career researchers (ECR) and fostering collaborations between them (French and international ECH) is central.

If you are interested in doing research on hallucinations and related phenomena, please get in touch with the Early Career Researcher on Hallucination.

Epistemological point of view of mental disorders

Although still progressively evolving, we hold a non-essentialist view of mental disorders (specifically schizophrenia). Essentialism considers that psychiatric disorders are naturally occurring independently of any categorisation, have demarcated boundaries, possess observable features (i.e., symptoms) that are produced by the disease, which is caused by a single, well-defined etiologic factor (Kendler et al., 2010; Zachar et al., 2015). Moreover, the symptoms are used to determine whether individuals fall under the "mental disorder" category or "healthy" (Kendler et al., 2011; Zachar, 2015). A non-essentialist view of psychiatry defends that mental disorders are the result of co-occurring symptoms that tend to cluster together either because they share similar causal processes or because one symptom might lead to another (e.g., insomnia might lead to increased concentration problems, low mood and so on) (Borsboom, 2017; Borsboom & Cramer, 2013; Bortolon & Raffard, 2019). Thus, we defend here that individuals who received a formal diagnosis of schizophrenia (or any other psychiatric disorder) are not essentially different from those who do not have such a diagnosis. Instead, experiences such as hearing voices or feeling suspicious of others are distributed across the entire population in a continuum perspective. Related to this point, we defend that the psychological processes associated with the onset and maintenance of specific problems (e.g., delusions) are not intrinsically pathological, we therefore also support the theory of continuum (van Os et al., 2009) that states that positive symptoms of Psychosis lie on the continuum, and should not be seen as categorical. Instead, they become dysfunctional in specific contexts. As such, we advocate for a clinical case formulation approach rather than targeting psychiatric diagnosis (Hoffman & Hayes, 2019). Indeed, many now support adopting a clinical case formulation approach (Johnstone et al., 2011; Kinderman, Schwannauer, et al., 2013). Clinical case formulation is at the core of cognitive behavioural therapy (and other clinical approaches). Case formulation consists of drawing on psychological theory to describe and explain the development and maintenance of clients' difficulties in a way that is coherent and personally meaningful to clients (Dudley et al., 2011) as well as to inform a plan of intervention (Johnstone et al., 2011). Evidence now supports using case formulation-based cognitive-behavioural therapy for psychotic symptoms (van der Gaag et al., 2014). We defend an evidence-based practice that aligns empirical evidence, adequate case formulation and a processual approach.

Accessible knowledge for clinicians

Sharing the knowledge produced within our group and making materials available for clinicians and scientists is part of our mission as researchers. You can find on the page Resources all scales, review papers in French, and manuals we have produced or translated.