Commentary on Henrik Walter's a??The third wave of biological psychiatrya??

摘要

There is good news: “Biological psychiatry is no longer biologistic!” According to Walter (2013), a seasoned German neuroscientist, psychiatrist and philosopher, a putative “third wave” of biological psychiatry has overcome many flaws that for a long time motivated our opposition to biological psychiatry: The third wave is no longer reductionist, localizations, or ignorant toward the normative, social, and cultural dimensions of mental problems. Rather, it analyses dynamic neural network activities, distinguishes multiple levels of description and takes every kind of context dependence you name into account. Furthermore, the third wave is aware of its methodological, theoretical and therapeutic limitations; and it self-criticizes all kinds of programmatic overstatements common in the field. In a nutshell: The third wave liberated biological psychiatry from its biologistic roots. It restricts itself to the legitimate search for the “biosignatures” of mental disorders.