Box 1.

Nine beliefs summarising the perspective of the neo-Kraepelinian approach¹⁹

• Psychiatry is a branch of medicine

• Psychiatry should use modern scientific methods and base its practice on scientific knowledge

• Psychiatry treats people who are sick and need treatment for mental illness

• A boundary exists between normal and sick people

• Mental illness is not a myth; there are many mental illnesses. It is the task of scientific psychiatry to investigate the causes, diagnosis, and treatment of these mental illnesses

• The focus of psychiatric physicians should focus on the biological aspects of mental illness

• There should be an explicit and intentional concern with diagnosis and classification

• Diagnostic criteria should be codified, and a legitimate and valued area of research should be to validate such criteria by various techniques. Psychiatry departments in medical schools should teach these criteria and not belittle them, as has been the case for many years

• Statistical techniques should be used in research efforts directed at improving the reliability and validity of diagnosis and classification