THE QUICK-FIX FOR MENTAL-ILLNESS - ITS PITFALLS

After briefly discussing the cyclical century-long dichotomous approac h to emotional disorders - psyche versus soma - the author presents a holistic view of mental disorders. The importance of psychosomatic app roach to the uniqueness and complexity of humans is stressed. He suppo rts the tenet of the interdependence of psyche and soma, and - contrar y to the present-day ''quick-fix'' pharmacotherapeutic approach to psy chiatric entities - he subscribes to at least a dual intervention: pha rmacological and psychotherapeutic. The latter obviously also involves environmental or milieu therapy. He believes that present-day quick-f ix pharmacological therapies, to the exclusion of psychotherapy, canno t achieve a total cure of the ill person, but are a temporary relief g iven by an abortive type of psychiatry which treats only the outward m anifestations of mental illness. The above approach, the author claims , is a reflection not only of economic considerations, but of a pragma tic and superficial view of life in an historical period in which the pendulum has shifted toward a primarily biological explanation of ment al illness.