Am J Psychiatry 1976; 133:1251-1258
Copyright © 1976 by American Psychiatric Association
A Bicentennial address: Benjamin Rush and those who came after him
FJ Braceland
In this Bicentennial year, the author takes a look at the early days of
Amercan psychiatry, focusing on some of the great men who helped to form
the discipline. These men have much to teach us in a time when the field is
divided within and faces a crisis of public confidence without. We can
learn much from men like Benjamin Rush, who although they were actively
involved in the social movements of their day, remained always the
physician. Dr. Braceland suggests that it is time for psychiatry to move
back into the mainstream of medicine, retaining, of course, mastery of
psychotherpeutic techniques and knowledge of psychodynamics. This move can
best be accomplished by employing the principle of complementarity, the art
of encompassing different approaches to problems and utilizing the
essentials of each to arrive at workable solutions.
