Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-d8cs5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-05T06:41:38.409Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reconquest of the Subjective

Against the Waning of Psychiatric Diagnosing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Herman M. van Praag
Herman M. van Praag*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, III E. 210th Street, Bronx, New York 10467, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Psychiatric research over the past three decades has now acquired the esteem it clearly deserves. Since empirical research presupposes definition of the object one studies and availability of instruments to measure it, operationalisation of diagnosis and development of psychometric instruments have become major concerns for psychiatry. This progress was promoted to a large degree by biological psychiatry. The search for biological underpinnings of abnormal human behaviour and the study of the efficacy and mechanism of action of biological treatments are both contingent on the use of standardised diagnoses and objective measurement. Biological psychiatry moved in recent years from a minority position into the mainstream, and its methods became the standard approach, especially in research.

Type
Point of View
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 160 , Issue 2 , February 1992 , pp. 266 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1992 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Psychiatric Association (1980) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn) (DSM–III). Washington, DC: APA.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association (1987) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn, revised) (DSM–III–R). Washington, DC: APA.Google Scholar
Endicott, J. & Spitzer, R. L. (1978) A diagnostic interview. The Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 35, 837–844.Google Scholar
Hamilton, M. (1960) A rating scale for depression. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 23, 56–62.Google Scholar
Hathaway, S. R. & McKinley, J. C. (1989) Minnesota Multiphasic Inventory – 2 (Manual). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Overall, J. E. & Gorman, D. R. (1962) The brief psychiatric rating scale. Psychological Reports, 10, 798–812.Google Scholar
Schneider, K. (1959) Klinische Psychopathologie. Stuttgart: J. Thieme Verlag.Google Scholar
van Praag, H. M. (1962) A critical investigation of the importance of monoamine oxidase inhibition as a therapeutic principle in the treatment of depression. Thesis, Utrecht.Google Scholar
van Praag, H. M. (1969) The complementary aspects in the relation between biological and psychodynamic psychiatry. Psychiatria Clinica, 2, 307–318.Google Scholar
van Praag, H. M. (1989) Diagnosing depression. Looking backward into the future. Psychiatric Developments, 7, 375–394.Google Scholar
van Praag, H. M. (1991) Malice or maladie? About the evil deeds of the great Herod. In Minds in Distress. Psychiatric Reflections on Biblical and Post-biblical figures. (In preparation).Google Scholar
van Praag, H. M. (1992) Psychiatry's Dilemma. Moving Ahead Yet Falling Behind. Brunner Mazel: New York (in press).Google Scholar
van Praag, H. M., Uleman, A. M. & Spitz, J. C. (1965) The vital syndrome interview. A structured standard interview for the recognition and registration of the vital depression symptom complex. Psychiatria Neurologia Neurochirurgia, 68, 329–346.Google Scholar
Westerman, N. (1922) Ueber die vitale Depression. Zeitschrift fur die Gesammte Neurologic und Psychiatric, 77, 391–398.Google Scholar
Wing, J. K., Cooper, J. E. & Sartorius, N. (1974) The Measurement and Classification of Psychiatric Symptoms. An Introductory Manual for the Present State Examination and CATEGO Program. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.