Events at Physics |
Reasons stem from major opposing figures of the twentieth century: (1) Freud who did present pathophysiologies but not based on a real nervous system - his writings did not mention the brain after 1900 despite his prior researcher and neurologist credentials. (2) "Biological" psychiatrists typified and led by Eli Robins who reacted to the untested therapies that made claims based on authority and that eschewed data-gathering. But they threw out the pathophysiology baby with the bathwater and suggested any "future" pathophysiologies would primarily involve cellular-molecular foundations - without need of other levels of analysis, an assumption that presently seems as without foundation as Freud's neglect of an actual brain.
Both traditions implied that the free-standing individual separable from other people suffices for their models. But although research shows psychotherapies of all kinds work effectively and that placebos account for much variance in drug treatment, these paradigmatic features persist in present day psychiatry, augmented in part by corporate financial factors. A psychiatric basic science with a focus on an evolved "social brain" with the physiological function of "relational neurobiology" would help provide order for psychiatry's disorder. Social factors account for much larger human brain size compared, for example, to chimpanzee brains (3x larger by weight) despite close genomic identity. An approach that dissects pathophysiological mechanisms includes communicational states that transcend species combined with communicational features seemingly unique to humans.