On the "infallibility" of psychopathology and its implications for action.

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org On the “Infallibility” of Psychopathology and Its Implications for Action Initial enthusiasm about discoveries in our field has evolved into questions about the meaning and future of current scientific approaches. The first set of questions has to do with the validity of information derived from biological and psychosocial sciences in understanding psychopathology. The second set of questions has to do with the value system dictating the sciences of psychopathology and their implications for future discoveries. A scientific response to these questions would consist of a critique of research methods. This editorial attempts an epistemological analysis rather than a scientific approach. This analysis assumes methodological integrity and thus starts from the point where the scientific critique ends. We advance the position that exclusive reliance on the experimental process produces incomplete knowledge in basic, clinical, or psychosocial fields. For this reason, pragmatic-social processes have been and will continue to exert major influence on our scientific initiatives. We argue that experimentally sound scientific findings have only relative value and that awareness of the influence of nonscientific processes on our scientific endeavors can promote and guide cross-fertilization of the sciences of psychopathology.