The ethical crisis in psychiatry: consequences for a comprehensive diagnosis and therapeutic practice

Abstract

Whereas antipsychiatry left the medical concept of disease and medical institutions intact at the turn of the century, this sector was fiercely called into question in the subsequent reform efforts. The disclosure that an argumentation in terms of pure, exact science was questionable encouraged these reform efforts and cast doubt on the objectivism dominant at that time. However, in the clinical domain, it also led to a profound crisis of legitimation and thus to a crisis in psychiatry's ethical self-conception. The absence of an integrative perspective comprising clinical theory and practice became obvious. In the future, the basic anthropological preconditions involved in a given clinical situation may serve as a guideline.