[Psychiatric controversies. Definition of the scientific position (author's transl)]

The history of psychiatry in the past 200 years shows that the basic position of this medical discipline is always influenced to a particular extent by trends of contemporary history. Such connections have in the past been the starting points of considerable psychiatric progress; but at other times they have -as in the Germany of National Socialism - also been the greatest dangers of psychiatry, even provoking its vilest misuse. Before such a background as this, comments are made on the present problems of psychiatry. Psychiatry today and in the future will only be able to cope with its tasks for the large number of mentally ill and mentally disturbed people if its foundation remains firmly anchored in medicine. And modern medicine will only be albe to overcome many problems in the near future if it always keeps itself open to the impulses and suggestions of a psychiatry fully integrated into the art of healing.