I Feel Bad, What Else? Prescribing As a Non Linear Relation

I feel bad, what else?

Prescribing as a non-linear relation

 

Philippe Le Moigne

National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Paris)

With the rise of biomedicine and EBM in psychiatry, mental disorders have been perceived as entities logically embodied in a linear relation between etiology, diagnosis and drug treatment. But, what does it mean for the practice of GPs? When a patient argues she/he feels bad, everything remains opened.

Social studies pointed out that physicians and patients gather a limited series of information during medical interviews: somatic or organic trouble, social or relational factor, structure of personality or natural inclination, psychology of self or individual expression. By selecting and sometimes arranging this kind of information in a comprehensive way, physicians and patients often make a “diagnosis with explanation”, that is an interpretation as a social and a whole meaning.