title: Dangerous "spin": the probability myth of evidence-based prescribing - a Merleau-Pontyian approach.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to examine logical positivist statistical probability statements used to support and justify "evidence-based" prescribing rules in psychiatry when viewed from the major philosophical theories of probability, and to propose "phenomenological probability" based on Maurice Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of "phenomenological positivism" as a better clinical and ethical basis for psychiatric prescribing.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The logical positivist statistical probability statements which are currently used to support "evidence-based" prescribing rules in psychiatry have little clinical or ethical justification when subjected to critical analysis from any of the major theories of probability and represent dangerous "spin" because they necessarily exclude the individual , intersubjective and ambiguous meaning of mental illness. A concept of "phenomenological probability" founded on Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of "phenomenological positivism" overcomes the clinically destructive "objectivist" and "subjectivist" consequences of logical positivist statistical probability and allows psychopharmacological treatments to be appropriately integrated into psychiatric treatment.
authors: ronmorstyn@bigpond.com
authors: Ron
authors: R
authors: Morstyn
mesh_terms: D011307:Drug Prescriptions; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000523:psychology; D010684:Philosophy; D011336:Probability; D011570:Psychiatry