The Concept of Consilience in the Field of Psychiatry / 신경정신의학

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this paper is to suggest a new model in psychiatry for understanding the psychopathology and to provide a new treatment modality. METHODS: In this paper, the author attempted to apply the concept of 'Consilience' to the field of psychiatry. Recently, the term 'Consilience' has been very popular and has been used frequently across the various academic fields. The original meaning of 'Consilience' is 'to jump (consilience) together (con). 'Consilience' was first used by William Whewell and Edward Wilson borrowed it to describe the unity of knowledge. In one word, 'Consilience' can be defined as 'to unify every field of knowledge and science to understand the human being and to improve the life of human being'. RESULTS: First, the human being by itself is the integrative being and consilient. Second, the developmental processes of psychiatry show that there are three definite developmental phases, including 'period of Consilience', 'period of diverse development', and 'reappearance of period of Consilience'. Third, in terms of historical perspective, the basic attitudes of religion have been closely associated with the basic concept of psychiatry. Finally, the treatment modalities in psychiatry show that integrative methods, including biological, psychological, social, and spiritual treatment have been applied. CONCLUSION: Based on these findings, the 'Bio-Psycho-Socio-Spiritual Model' is suggested to apply the concept of 'Consilience' to the field of psychiatry.