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Relevance of Ethology to Psychiatry
Author(s) -
Saku Motohiro
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
psychiatry and clinical neurosciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1440-1819
pISSN - 1323-1316
DOI - 10.1111/j.1440-1819.1992.tb00536.x
Subject(s) - ethology , viewpoints , psychology , relevance (law) , psychiatry , clinical psychiatry , psychotherapist , cognitive science , art , ecology , political science , law , visual arts , biology
The interactions between ethology and psychiatry were reviewed. The ethological methods have provided more objective and theory‐free observation techniques than the traditional psychiatric methods. The evolution‐based ethological viewpoints afford some fundamentally new and more comprehensive approaches in understanding psychiatric conditions. The ethological theory has many concepts in common with various other schools of psychiatry, and thus is expected to act as a bridge to integrate them to lead to a more comprehensive psychiatric theory system. Ethology has not explored its potential in therapy, but may be useful, especially in terms of prevention and social psychiatry.