Paradigms of psychiatry: eclecticism and its discontents.
OBJECTIVE
To assess paradigms of psychiatry, assessing their strengths and limitations.


RESULTS
The biopsychosocial model, and eclecticism in general, serves as the primary paradigm of mainstream contemporary psychiatry. In the past few decades, the biopsychosocial model served as a cease-fire between the biological and psychoanalytic extremism that characterized much of the 19th and 20th century history of psychiatry. Despite being broad and fostering an 'anything goes' mentality, it fails to provide much guidance as a model. In recent years, the biological school has gained prominence and now is under attack from many quarters. Critics tend toward dogmatism themselves, usually of postmodernist or libertarian varieties. Three alternate approaches include pragmatism, integrationism, and pluralism. Pluralism, as technically defined here based on the work of Karl Jaspers, rejects or accepts different methods but holds that some methods are better than others for specific circumstances or conditions.


CONCLUSIONS
The compromise paradigm of biopsychosocial eclecticism has failed to sufficiently guide contemporary psychiatry. The concurrent revival of the biological model has led to postmodernist counter-reactions which, though valid in many specifics, promise to replace one ideological dogma with another. New paradigms are needed.
Ghaemi
Seyyed Nassir
SN
Department of Psychiatry and Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA. nghaemi@emory.edu
D001689:Biological Psychiatry; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010686:Philosophy, Medical; D033302:Postmodernism; D011570:Psychiatry; D011572:Psychoanalysis; D011582:Psychological Theory