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Holistic-Medical Foundations of American Psychiatry

A Bicentennial

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Psychosomatic Medicine and Liaison Psychiatry

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Abstract

Much has been written in recent years about psychiatry’s identity crisis. A historian summed it up well: “The field of psychiatry is now in a state of uncertainty and restlessness, unable to abandon the traditional theoretical models and unprepared to face the challenge of the great social issues at stake.”1, p.71 I believe that the current malaise can be counteracted by a clear reaffirmation rather than an abandonment of those traditional models which have proven to be especially durable and effective. A historical perspective is indispensable to identify them. A look back at 200 years of American psychiatry reveals a conceptual model that is truly its foundation and hallmark. I shall refer to it as the holistic-medical model or approach. It is the purpose of this paper to retrace that model’s evolution and the achievements that it made possible and to underscore its fitness as an organizing principle to serve psychiatry in the 1980s and beyond.

The cure of many disease is unknown to the physicians of Hellas, because they disregard the whole, which ought to be studied also, for the part can never be well unless the whole is well.

Plato, Charmides

Psychology which explains everything explains nothing, and we are still in doubt.

Marianne More

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, Toronto, Canada

    Z. J. Lipowski

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  1. Z. J. Lipowski
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© 1981 American Psychiatric Association

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Lipowski, Z.J. (1981). Holistic-Medical Foundations of American Psychiatry. In: Psychosomatic Medicine and Liaison Psychiatry. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2509-3_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2509-3_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-9517-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-2509-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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