Comments on "cyclical swings" by Professor Hannah Decker: The underappreciated "solid center" of psychiatry

The history of psychiatry is characterized by some deep ideological and conceptual divisions, as adumbrated in Professor Hannah Decker's essay. However, the schism between "biological" and "psychosocial" models of mental illness and its treatment represents extreme positions among some psychiatrists-not the model propounded by academic psychiatry or its affiliated professional organizations. Indeed, the "biopsycho-social model" (BPSM) developed by Dr. George L. Engel has been, and remains, the foundational model for academic psychiatry, notwithstanding malign market forces that have undermined the BPSM's use in clinical practice. The BPSM is integrally related to "centralizing" and integrative trends in American psychiatry that may be traced to Franz Alexander, Karl Jaspers, and Engel himself, among others. This "Alexandrian-Jaspersian-Engelian" tradition is explored in relation to Professor Decker's "cyclical swing" model of psychiatry's history.