EPA-0355 – History of Psychiatry Revisited- from Araeteus, Hippocrates and Other Forerunners to the Biopsychosocial Paradigm

Abstract

While Hippocrates inaugurated naturalistic thinking in psychiatry and medicine generally, he was never too open for psychodynamic elements. Some authors like Ackerknecht even express the view, that he favoured extreme somatism. In contrast, Aretaeus, the Cappadocian – some centuries later – not only described mania and depression in the same person, but also depression in somebody, who fell in love unhappily. Thus the question is justified, that he maybe was the first author, who included psychodynamic thoughts in medicine and inaugurated the „Minor Psychiatry’ (German: „Kleine Psychiatrie’)! Thus Araeteus might have contributed a major part to build a sophisticated way of psychiatric thinking. Albeit he was not heard. The developement of further centuries showed little paradigmatic variations: whether liquids or pores (Asclepiades, Themison) the same attitude or metaparadigm was applied: first assessing a material fact and than derive a psychic quality. Even Brown or Franz Gall were following that scheme. Not before youngest decades: Engel‘s biopsychosocial paradigm was putting an end to monocausal thinking.