Maslow's hammer: considering the perils of solutionism in mental healthcare and psychiatric practice
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 5, 2025

Continuous Theta Burst Stimulation of the Posterior Medial Frontal Cortex to Experimentally Reduce Ideological Threat Responses
Published on: September 28, 2018
Jeffrey C L Looi1, Daniel Bonner1, Paul Maguire1
1Academic Unit of Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine, the Australian National University Medical School, Canberra Hospital, ACT, Australia.
Objective:
To discuss narrow pragmatism, manifest as digital and technical solutionism, in mental healthcare and psychiatric practice. Pragmatism is a view of the field of psychiatry as an instrument or tool for the purpose of providing psychiatric care for people with a mental illness. Solutionism, as proposed by Morozov, can be considered a special case of pragmatism that valorises an approach to solving real-world problems based on computation, algorithms and digital technology,1 which we extend to discuss other technical solutions such as medication, non-invasive brain stimulation and psychotherapy.
Conclusions:
Digital or technical solutionism may unnecessarily constrain approaches to mental healthcare and psychiatric practice. Psychiatrists can consider, and should advocate for, appropriate adaptation of technology and technical solutions toward collaborative and effective mental healthcare.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Community Based Intervention
Foundations of Community Mental Health Programs
Central to the success of community-based interventions is the...
Psychosurgery
Historical Development of Psychosurgery
In the 1930s, Portuguese neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz introduced a surgical procedure designed...
Humanistic Psychology
This approach...
Beck's Cognitive Therapy
Arbitrary Inference
Arbitrary inference involves making conclusions without sufficient...
Humanistic Therapy
Maslow's Theory of Basic Human Needs
Physiological needs such as hunger, thirst, sex, physical comfort, and survival are at the bottom of the pyramid. These are the components that are necessary to sustain life. Once the first level of needs has been met, the second level arises.
Safety needs include stability and predictability. Protection and freedom from danger are all a part...

