Psychiatric diagnosis needs a more scientific approach

FORUM: ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF A PROTOTYPE-MATCHING APPROACH TO PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSIS Prototype diagnosis of psychiatric syndromes 16 D. WESTEN

A practical prototypic system for psychiatric 24 diagnosis: the ICD-11 Clinical Descriptions and Diagnostic Guidelines M.B. FIRST Prototypal diagnosis: will this relic from the past 26 become the wave of the future? A. FRANCES Are you as smart as a 4th grader? Why the 27 prototype-similarity approach to diagnosis is a step backward for a scientific psychiatry J.C. WAKEFIELD Nosological changes ...

Psychiatric diagnosis, psychiatric power and psychiatric abuse.

Psychiatric abuse, such as we usually associate with practices in the former Soviet Union, is related not to the misuse of psychiatric diagnoses, but to the political power intrinsic to the social role of the psychiatrist in totalitarian and democratic societies alike. Some reflections are offered on the modern, therapeutic state's proclivity to treat adults as patients rather than citizens, di...

Science needs more Moneyball

More than Nature Needs

1870. United Kingdom. Scenes from a divorce. Alfred Russel Wallace, the coinventor with Darwin of the theory of evolution through natural selection, completely captivated by the melodious song of the sirens hailing spiritualism landed definitively on the controversial shores of the treason. In effect, with his essay The Limits of Natural Selection as Applied to Man, Wallace turned his back on t...

Scientific Objectivity and Psychiatric Nosology

This paper challenges the traditional conception of objectivity in science by arguing that its singular focus on evidential relations and search for aperspectivalism renders it inadequate. Through an examination of psychiatric nosology, I argue that interesting and unique problems arise that challenge this conception of objectivity and that these challenges cannot be met by this account. Howeve...