| Abstract [eng] |
In the face of the crisis in the biomedical psychiatric paradigm, two possible future directions for psychiatry are emerging, based on different conceptions of mental disorder. The subjectivist or phenomenological approach emphasises the subjective experience of mental disorder and argues that psychiatry cannot be identified with neurology because of the uniqueness of its subject matter. The precision psychiatry approach adheres to the biomedical concept of mental disorder as a disorder of the brain and seeks to integrate the disciplines of psychiatry and neurology. This paper deals with the question whether the validity of the concept of mental disorders as brain disorders can be refuted and whether precision psychiatry as a future paradigm of psychiatry cannot be justified. Using Elselijn Kingma's notion of social constructivism and the distinction between phenomenal and psychological consciousness, this paper shows that the dispute over the concept of mental disorder is not on an ontological level, but on a political level, and that precision psychiatry is winning it. |
