CAM in Psychiatry.

Abstract

In western countries, the 19th century marks a turning point for the beginning of psychiatry as an academic discipline. Since this happened and psychiatry had left the asylums at the boundaries not only of cities but medicine itself, we can find quite a row of examples concerning integration [1]. Psychiatry has integrated many treatments into the therapeutic spectrum, for example, tricyclic antidepressants, SSRI, relaxation techniques like progressive muscle-relaxation or hypnosis, cognitive-behavioural, psychoanalytic, or systemic psychotherapy, even acupuncture according to the protocol of the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA) [2, 3] or lately mindfulness-based cognitive therapy [4]. However, three aspects seem suitable to understand the openness of psychiatry for new methods: (a) the fact that since decades, professional multidisciplinarity in psychiatry is a crucial basis for the inand outpatient treatment (e.g., psycho-, ergo-, music-, physiotherapists, nutritionists, and social workers), (b) psychiatrists today need to have a double qualification in psychiatry and psychotherapy to be able to work according to (c), Engel’s biopsychosocial model, which had been adopted as a solid basis for the previously mentioned.