Objectivity in a Subjective Field: The Current State and Future Directions of “Objective” Diagnostics in Psychiatry

Authors

  • Adith V. Ram Menninger Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, 1977 Butler Blvd, 4-400, Houston TX 77030, USA.
  • Eric A. Storch Menninger Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, 1977 Butler Blvd, 4-400, Houston TX 77030, USA.

Abstract

Even in its most evidence-based practice, medicine is often an inherently subjective field, both in terms of self-reported symptoms on the patient side and clinical reasoning on the provider side. There is arguably no area of medicine as subjective as psychiatry, a specialty which often focuses on emotions, experiences, and realities that are difficult to quantify or “objectively” analyze. Historically, this subjectivity limited progress and treatment options in psychiatry in many ways. Until the mid-20th century, psychiatry was rooted in anecdotal cases within institutions, followed by a largely psychoanalytic framework supported by evidence which was tenuous at best.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Suris A, Holliday R, North CS. The evolution of the classification of psychiatric disorders. Behav Sci (Basel) 2016; 6:5. doi:10.3390/bs6010005

Arzy S, Danziger S. The science of neuropsychiatry: past, present, and future. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 2014; 26:392-5. doi:10.1176/appi.neuropsych.13120371

Masdeu JC. Neuroimaging in psychiatric disorders. Neurotherapeutics 2011; 8:93-102. doi:10.1007/s13311-010-0006-0

Abi-Dargham A, Horga G. The search for imaging biomarkers in psychiatric disorders. Nat Med 2016; 22:1248-55. doi:10.1038/nm.4190

Linden DE. The challenges and promise of neuroimaging in psychiatry. Neuron 2012; 73:8-22. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2011.12.014

Lakhan SE, Vieira K, Hamlat E. Biomarkers in psychiatry: drawbacks and potential for misuse. Int Arch Med 2010; 3:1 doi:10.1186/1755-7682-3-1

Abdallah CG, Sheth SA, Storch EA, Goodman WK. Brain imaging in psychiatry: Time to move from regions of interest and interpretive analyses to connectomes and predictive modeling? Am J Psychiatry 2023; 180:17-19. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.20220907

Terra M, Baklola M, Ali S, El‑Bastawisy K. Opportunities, applications, challenges and ethical implications of artificial intelligence in psychiatry: a narrative review. Egypt J Neurol Psychiatry Neurosurg 2023; 59: 80. doi:10.1186/s41983-023-00681-z

Downloads

Published

2024-08-09

How to Cite

Ram, A. V., & Storch, E. A. (2024). Objectivity in a Subjective Field: The Current State and Future Directions of “Objective” Diagnostics in Psychiatry. Journal of the Dow University of Health Sciences (JDUHS), 18(2), 71–72. Retrieved from https://jduhs.com/index.php/jduhs/article/view/2242

Issue

Vol. 18 No. 2

Section

Editorial

License

Copyright (c) 2024 Eric A. Storch

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Articles published in the Journal of Dow University of Health Sciences are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/4.0/. This license permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium; provided the original work is properly cited and initial publication in this journal.