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Psychiatry and the scientific fallacy
Author(s) -
Saraga Michael,
Stiefel Friedrich
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0447.2011.01708.x
Subject(s) - liaison psychiatry , general hospital , service (business) , citation , medicine , psychiatry , library science , psychology , family medicine , computer science , economy , economics
Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is now a science. So is psychiatry: DSM-III emphasized diagnostic reliability as the condition for scientific psychiatry; randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and meta-analyses are the gold standard to measure therapeutic effects; psychopathology evolved into a complex statistical discipline; psychiatric disorders are investigated by neuroscientists; and, since the 1990s, psychiatrists use newgeneration antidepressants and antipsychotics. A scientific nosology, complex tools, rigorous statistics and modern, sophisticated, receptor-specific drugs – this is the current Zeitgeist: psychiatry is finally leaving the Freudian wars of the past and joining up with science.