Historical Epistemology: a Research Approach in Psychiatry
- PDF / 225,155 Bytes
- 9 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 75 Downloads / 198 Views
Open Access
Historical Epistemology: a Research Approach in Psychiatry Ivana S. Marková 1 Accepted: 25 November 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Drawing on a key issue raised in the paper by Scardigno and Mininni (2021), this commentary explores the question of historical research in psychiatry. Firstly, the importance of historical research is highlighted for both psychiatry as a medical discipline, and for descriptive psychopathology, the language of psychiatry. Of significance has been the construction of psychiatry as a hybrid discipline formed through the deep participation of both the natural and the social sciences. This in turn brings to light the fundamental difference in epistemological basis to psychiatry and medicine, with ensuing consequences for our understanding of mental disorders and for the development of further research methodology. Likewise conceptually hybrid, the special role carried by mental symptoms in psychiatry places them, as concepts, in the position of crucial research tools. Secondly, given some of the complexities raised in carrying out historical research in this area, the issue of how this should be approached is examined. The method proposed here is that of historical epistemology. This is an approach that focuses on concepts, on mapping their biographies in order to clarify their structures, their roles, their discontinuities, their relationships and interactions with other concepts and so on. Given the central role of concepts in psychiatry and descriptive psychopathology, this approach to their study is most likely to provide valid and meaningful results. Keywords Historical epistemology . Descriptive psychopathology . Hybrid objects .
Concepts In their article ‘un-certainty as a pragmatic resource for psychiatric argumentation: a diachronical and diatextual approach’, Scardigno and Mininni (2021) present a historical analysis of 90 articles selected randomly from the British Journal of Psychiatry over the 160 years of the journal’s life. Using textual resources, they analyse how the
* Ivana S. Marková [email protected]
1
Hull York Medical School, Allam Medical Building University of Hull, HU6 7RX Hull, UK
Integr Psych Behav
way in which psychiatrists communicate their findings has changed over this time. Their diachronic approach is thus restricted to textual analysis and to predominantly Anglo-American psychiatry. Whilst, this may give rise to some interesting questions, its decontextualizing approach (e.g. from other medical writings, from social, cultural, political, economic, and other contexts) can only provide a very partial narrative. Amongst a number of issues raised by this paper, I therefore want to concentrate on two that are particularly pertinent to the study of psychiatry. Firstly, there is the question of why carry out historical research in this area; what is the purpose in doing this? Secondly, how should this be carried out, or what methods are most appropriate in order to yield epistemically valid and meaningful results?
Why Do Historica
Data Loading...
