Understanding and Explaining in the Psychiatric Assessment

Gareth S. Owen

doi:10.1017/9781009212526.006

Chapter 6 - Understanding and Explaining in the Psychiatric Assessment

Two Worlds

from Part I - Towards Psychiatric Formulation

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2025

Gareth S. Owen

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Gareth S. Owen: Affiliation:
King's College London and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

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Summary

A distinction between types of methods (understanding and explanation) that generate different kinds of evidence relevant to the psychiatric assessment is characterised. The distinction is animated with both non-clinical and clinical examples and exercises. Scepticism about the distinction is addressed, and three influential systems of psychiatric knowledge which collapse understanding and explanation in different ways are discussed. The argument is made that the distinction (analogous to the romantic/classic distinction) resurfaces and is compelling. However, another challenge becomes important – holism in psychiatric assessment – which the understanding/explanation distinction leaves in an unsatisfactory state.

Keywords

understanding Verstehen explanation Karl Jaspers Sigmund Freud cognitive neuroscience big data causation

Type: Chapter
Information: Psychiatry and Human Nature
Classic and Romantic Perspectives
, pp. 72 - 89

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009212526.006 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2025

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