From DSM-5 to anthropopsychiatry: (Re)search for a renewed psychiatry

Abstract

Introduction is the Esperanto of Let it be? If DSM is to be considered as a symptom of contemporary psychiatry, the time for a change has come. Objectives An important candidate towards an in depth move is anthropopsychiatry. Anthropopsychiatry is the original confluence of classical psychiatry, philosophy (phenomenology and structuralism) and psychoanalysis. An elegant evidence-based investigation (Roelandts and Schotte, 1999) exemplifies its importance. Methods A search in literature with authors like Frances, Edward Shorter, Vanheule, Verhaeghe and Feys reveals several flaws in the DSM construction. A four-fold analysis by means of the epistemological terms nosography, nosotaxy, nosology and nosognosy makes clear that the DSM is a thinking under construction, culturally child of its time. The concerns from the British Psychological Society and the objection by the NIMH are first moves towards another psychiatric classification, and consequently another vision on psychiatric theory and praxis. Results Foregoing reveals anthropopsychiatry as an appeal towards present day psychiatry. It grounds modern psychiatry as an autological psychiatry (Kronfeld) with its own conceptualization and not heterological as an assemblage of all kinds of influences coming from neurobiological sources and human psychological findings. Conclusion Anthropopsychiatry can be considered to be a serious candidate in the development towards a renewed psychiatry evidently based on clinical anthropology (Geyskens).