Gerd Huber and Gisela Gross: The Development of the Psychopathology in Germany in the Last Decades (20th century) with an Introduction by Carlos R. Hojaij

Carlos Hojaij’s reply to Ernst Franzek’s comment

          I agree that the paper mainly went through Heidelberg’s route.

          However, the publication of Huber and Gross article in Psiquiatria Biológica (1995) was to honor the long and fruitful career of both psychiatrists.      

          The purpose of bringing this publication to INHN was to highlight some critical aspects in psychopathology not yet solved (as if one day it will be possible) and promote a discussion among our members.

          The psychiatry negligence towards psychopathology in the last three or four decades comes correlated to the enormous predominance of a simplistic symptmtological diagnosis and a pharmacological panacea intervention.

Example one

          While in the same basket are included “schizophrenia and other psychosis,” psychiatry until now is not able to offer a consistent and reliable identification of this enigmatic illness, even less for its causation, and yet how it would be possible to uniformly conceive numerous different psychosis in terms of cause, symptomatology, evolution and treatment?

Example two

          With the primary designation of drugs as anti-psychotic, anti-depressant, mood stabilizer and anxiolytic properties, the psychiatrist is supposed to fix all mental illnesses. This kind of designation is a marketing misleading terminology.  Accordingly, a so called anti-psychotic can also be given for all sort of mental illnesses. Of course it can be given for all sort of mental illnesses, because it is not really anti-psychotic, it just suppresses (not cures) what is called psychotic.

          Once more, together with many other long-standing psychiatrists, I am making a claim that psychopathology is the main tool in psychiatry. Psychopathology needs to be resuscitated, unless we conform with the current extensive cultural de-humanization of homo sapiens.

Reference:

Huber G, Gross G. The Development of the Psychopathology in Germany in the Last Decades. Psychiatria Biologica 1995; 3: 65-72.

May 28, 2020