Psychiatry for the Person: articulating medicine's science and humanism.

Abstract

The WPA Institutional Program on Psychiatry for the Person: from Clinical Care to Public Health (IPPP), approved by the 2005 General Assembly, involves a WPA initiative affirming the whole person of the patient in context as the center and goal of clinical care and health promotion, at both individual and community levels. This involves the articulation of science and humanism to optimize attention to the ill and positive health aspects of the person. Ancient Greek philosophers and physicians, like Socrates, Plato and Hippocrates, advocate holism in medicine (1). Socrates taught that if the whole is not well it is impossible for the part to be well. It is striking that these perspectives are re-emerging with renewed vigor in today's world through assertions that there is no health without mental health and by focusing local and international health efforts on the totality of the person (2-4). And here the person is to be thought of in a contextualized manner, in the words of the philosopher Ortega y Gasset, I am I and my circumstance. In addition, evidence is growing for the value of integrating mental health in general health and public health practice (5). These concerns are emerging in response to many deficiencies in health care including neglect of the needs of real people (6-9). A major perspective to deal with these limitations emphasizes a comprehensive and holistic concept encompassing ill and positive health as well as a biological, psychological, social, cultural and spiritual framework (10-13). The mental health care field in many countries is being stimulated by a recent movement emphasizing recovery and resilience (14,15) which promotes the fulfilment and empowerment of patients as active participants in their own health care. Also, increasing interest is appearing towards clinicians applying themselves as whole human beings (16). All these perspectives reflect growing aspirations towards meeting scientifically, humanistically and ethically our responsibilities as psychiatrists and health professionals (17-19). Given the early programmatic achievements and responses received from throughout WPA and initial contacts with external organizations (World Federation for Mental Health, World Medical Association, World Federation for Neurology, etc.) it is becoming clear that Psychiatry for the Person (and eventually a Medicine for the Person) has to be seen as a long term initiative aimed at innovatively refocusing the objectives of the psychiatric and medical fields in consonance with their fundamental soul.

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