title: [Knowledge of Man Returns: Some Considerations on Spirituality and Resilience].
abstract: Over the last decade,"spirituality" and "resilience" have jointly become a topic in psychiatry. The aim of this paper is to discuss the future of psychiatry suggested by this topic. It may be related to what Jaspers, K. called "Knowledge of Man (die Erkenntnis des Menschen)". Knowledge of man in psychiatry can be learned only through clinical experince: e. g., clinical observations and case studies. Modern academic psychiatry seems to be suffering a loss of knowledge of man, which returns periodically in clinical practice. Hence, I will call the re-discovery of the topic in psychiatry as "Return of Man". Since WW II, there have been three eras in which psychiatrists showed deep concern regarding knowledge of man. Firstly, psychopathology and psychotherapy widely developed, when the destructive impulses of mankind were revealed in the nuclear weapons of WW II. Secondly, in the 1970's, the reforms of psychiatric services and legal systems took place somewhat successfully, when social reforms were concerns of the younger generations. Lastly, over the last decade, the topic again returned as spirituality and resilience, when scientists seemed to be powerless in the aftermath of the West Japan Earthquake. Regarding the definition of health made by the WHO in 1946, I further discuss that "Return of Man" in psychiatry is the necessary dynamism between negative and positive health, or between disease control and health promotion. There is an underlying dynamism between "Knowledge of Man" and natural sciences, which is constantly changing. So long as any theory can exist only as a part of dynamism, the Return of Man may re-surface whenever clinical theories do not fit with clinical realities.
authors.forename: Nobuhiro
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kumakura
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D055500:Resilience, Psychological; D029181:Spirituality; D014944:World Health Organization