Am J Psychiatry 1981; 138:1279-1287
Copyright © 1981 by American Psychiatric Association
Twentieth-century psychiatry: a view from the sea
LL Havens
The author presents a broad view of the principal forces at work in
twentieth-century psychiatry. He describes the approach of the various
psychiatries--psychoanalytic, biological, behaviorist, social,
interpersonal, and existential--to the diagnostic enterprise and the
therapeutic enterprise. He finds twentieth-century diagnosis dominated by
objective-descriptive psychiatry and therapy by the extraordinary growth of
psychotherapy in the industrial nations. The newer psychotherapeutic
methods have made the first systematic additions since Freud to our
understanding of the ways in which personal change occurs.
