Interrelations Between Methodological and Ethical Basic Conditions in Psychiatric Therapy Research

Abstract

Therapeutic research in psychiatry cannot be done without patients. The main reason is that therapeutic effects can be established only against diseases, but adequate disease models of most human specific psychiatric diseases do not exist. Furthermore, knowledge gained from pre- or extraclinical investigations can be applied to psychiatric patients, particularly to those with more severe psychiatric diseases, only to a rather limited extent. This is valid not only for

• a) the results of animal pharmacology, but also for

• b) observations with psychotherapy on nonpsychiatric people, e.g. psychoanalytic experiences in healthy persons, or results of behaviour modification in smoke is or obese clients, or even for

• c) sociological hypotheses such as the labelling theory, the irrelevance of which has been shown for some psychiatric diseases.