Which science for psychiatry? The challenge of the behavioural therapies

The advent of behavioural medicine has presented psychiatry with the need to re-examine its relationships to the human sciences on the one hand, and the natural sciences on the other. This paper discusses the essential differences between these two approaches as they are applied in the clinical situation. It is suggested that a need exists to marry these two ways of approaching patient problems and, in particular, for psychiatrists to improve their understanding of the hermeneutic mode of achieving understanding.