Lazarus syndrome: a missed opportunity?

Abstract

Nowadays the role of psychiatry among the medical disciplines is difficult to identify. Three major changes are responsible for the current confusion: “the loss of a cultural reference; the fragmentation of psychiatry after the closure of the mental hospitals, and the increased application of neuroscience and neuropharmacology to the practice of psychiatry. To that one should add a major cultural change within the family. This includes the emphasis on immediate gratification, and the disappearance of the figure of the leader, most of the time impersonated by the father. Instead of liberating the psychiatric patient from the stigma of the disease, the combination of these factors has lead to a new form of ostracism. The new psychiatric patient is a person unable to adapt to rapidly changing social rules imposed by competing cultural influences. These claims control and power on social rules as competing forces, whose strength relies on confrontation rather than dialogue, on subjugation rather than consensus. After reviewing the ongoing challenges of psychiatry, the article explores the interaction of medical and humanistic sciences in the creation of a psychiatry at the service of the human being as a unique entity, endowed with a unique mission.