John Campbell reviews for us how to think about the causal processes that might be at work in psychiatry. The laws of physics cannot be a plausible model because it deals with matter – particles, planets, and the like. In psychiatry, we deal with patients who are both brained and minded. The brain is a physical system but one of staggering complexity. The mind is a whole different kind of thing, and it is here that empathic understanding must come into play. Given now important our interactions with our conspecifics are – our spouses, children, friends, and particularly enemies – evolution has likely tuned our emphatic understanding for accuracy to help us intuit the motivations and internal emotional states of our fellow humans.

After a brief overview, Lauren N. Ross and Kenenth S. Kendler begin their chapter reviewing the history of the proximal versus distal cause distinction in public health and epidemiology. Its purpose is to provide a framework for understanding how social and biological causes jointly impact the development of disease and health outcomes. This distinction traditionally utilizes a causal pathway model in which, for example, upstream, social factors such as organizational policies for remote work influence downstream, direct biological factors such as infection.

Dynamics, in the sense we intend it, is the great discovery of Isaac Newton (1642–1726). Thus we provide a short presentation of the the fundamental laws, without devoting much space to this argument, which is usually part of courses in Classical Mechanics.

The best starting point for this chapter is found in Poincaré’s Méthodes Nouvelles. In Chapter I, § 13 he states the general problem of Dynamics. Let us formulate the problem in language consistent with that of this book.

An otherwise healthy 6-month-old female infant with a normal birth history and no pertinent family history presents to pediatric neurology with concerns of abnormal movements. Parents report episodes during which her arms, legs, and head quickly flex forward and remain there for a few seconds. The movements started 2 months ago. These appear to be more common in the morning and are followed by crying. These events have been progressively increasing in frequency, now clustering shortly after awakening, and she has recently developed similar episodes involving back and neck arching, lasting a few seconds as well. Parents report that though she was previously able to, she now seems to have difficulty holding her head up when on her belly and smiles less when talked to.

The arts are undeniably emotionally evocative. This chapter focuses on our complex emotional entanglement with the arts and describes the range of emotional experiences that people have with the arts, as well as how those experiences can foster learning, curiosity, and growth. It argues that because of their ability to express and evoke emotionally complex experiences, the arts are a fertile ground for the development of a critical set of cognitive skills associated with emotional intelligence: perceiving, interpreting, regulating, and acting on emotions experienced by oneself and others. Empirical evidence is marshaled to show that the arts present us with novel opportunities to observe and examine how emotions are expressed in varied, nuanced, or even exaggerated ways, which offers insight into the emotional experience of others. Additionally, the chapter shows that feeling and actively reflecting on a host of emotions evoked during art making and art appreciation can help us to recognize and appropriately label our emotions, which is key to healthy self-regulation.

A 40-year-old man with normal childhood development and history of depression presents to the outpatient neurology clinic, accompanied by his mother, for abnormal movements. He states he has become progressively clumsier over the past 3 years, now having difficulty standing still and walking, and feels as though his limbs are always moving. He endorses difficulty with coordinating movements such as holding objects, brushing his teeth, and dressing himself. His mother adds his mood lability has worsened over the past year and that she is concerned as his father showed similar symptoms prior to committing suicide at age 46.

This chapter investigates the role of state-level bureaucrats in drafting and promoting legislation. In doing so, it challenges the conventional notion of separation-of-powers by showing that the executive branch often initiates statutory change. Drawing on original data from eleven states and a decades-long survey of administrators across all fifty states, the chapter demonstrates that bureaucrats are deeply involved in legislative affairs: authoring bills, collaborating with legislators, and influencing policy outcomes. Agency-initiated bills are common, pass at higher rates than other bills, and tend to attract bipartisan support. Their prevalence and success vary systematically across states, shaped by institutional capacity and partisan alignment: legislatures with fewer resources and unified partisan control are more likely to pass agency bills. At the individual level, legislators with greater power – such as committee chairs or those in the governor's party – are more likely to sponsor bureaucratic proposals. These findings put bureaucrats as strategic actors, valued by the legislature for expertise and policy-ready proposals. By focusing on the origination of legislation rather than just its implementation, this chapter provides new insight into the blurred boundaries between legislative and executive functions in US state politics and underscores the importance of studying bureaucratic influence at the earliest stages of the policymaking process.