The intellectual crisis of psychiatric research

The aim of this paper was to examine the intellectual crisis and the potential sources of reveille in clinical research in psychiatry. Current prevailing conceptual models in psychiatry are critically examined, with particular reference to neurobiology, clinical psychopharmacology, assessment, and the therapeutic process. Biological reductionism, neglect of individual responses to treatment, massive propaganda from the pharmaceutical industry, misleading effects of psychometric theory on clinical assessment, and lack of consideration of multiple therapeutic ingredients and of the role of psychological well-being are identified as major sources of an intellectual crisis in psychiatric research. The conceptual crisis of psychiatry is shared by other areas of clinical medicine and stems from a narrow concept of science that neglects clinical observation, the basic method of medicine. A unified concept of health and disease may yield new clinical insights in psychiatric disorders, and may result in therapeutic efforts of more enduring quality than current strategies. Copyright (c) 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel.