Even though values are crucial to our understanding of psychiatry, prevailing models of mental illness fail to properly integrate them. Neuroscience has produced a large amount of knowledge, but it needs to be augmented to fully integrate other relevant dimensions, such as the experiential, the social, and the existential. Engel’s biopsychosocial model, Leigh’s genetic-memetic model, the enactive model (e.g., in Haan), and the hybrid model by Berrios and Markova all foreshadow a new epistemology that, when worked out fully, will be able to achieve that and provide robust theoretical foundations for psychiatry.

A key problem in psychiatry is resolving disputes about mental capacity that often relate to the patient’s values being at odds with those of others. A new, VBP-informed stakeholders’ tribunal, including a philosopher, a VBP-trained clinician, and optional members with expertise relevant to the case, could provide a good process for working with these values.

Choosing our instrumental values appropriately at the person and societal levels is key to the prevention and treatment of mental illness. However, psychiatry needs to make it clear that it is only one of the players, and if these values are to be fully realized, public health, government, and the public need to work collaboratively.