[Methodology of therapeutic trials in psychopharmacology (author's transl)]

The paper discusses the general methodologic aspects of therapeutic trials in psychopharmacology under three main headings: definition of the concepts of disease, treatment, and healing. In each case, the author discusses the main difficulties, and gives concrete examples. In conclusions, the complexity of the methodologic problems is stressed, but the author considers that the cost of using correct experimental designs is more than balanced by the safety of the statistical conclusions.