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- Title
Dangerous 'spin': the probability myth of evidence-based prescribing - a Merleau-Pontyian approach.
- Authors
Morstyn, Ron
- Abstract
Objective: The aim of this study was to examine logical positivist statistical probability statements used to support and justify 'evidence-based' prescribing rules in psychiatry when viewed from the major philosophical theories of probability, and to propose 'phenomenological probability' based on Maurice Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of 'phenomenological positivism' as a better clinical and ethical basis for psychiatric prescribing. Conclusions: The logical positivist statistical probability statements which are currently used to support 'evidence-based' prescribing rules in psychiatry have little clinical or ethical justification when subjected to critical analysis from any of the major theories of probability and represent dangerous 'spin' because they necessarily exclude the individual , intersubjective and ambiguous meaning of mental illness. A concept of 'phenomenological probability' founded on Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of 'phenomenological positivism' overcomes the clinically destructive 'objectivist' and 'subjectivist' consequences of logical positivist statistical probability and allows psychopharmacological treatments to be appropriately integrated into psychiatric treatment.
- Subjects
EVIDENCE-based psychiatry; POSITIVIST ethics; PROBABILITY theory; DRUG prescribing; MERLEAU-Ponty, Maurice, 1908-1961; OBJECTIVISM (Philosophy)
- Publication
Australasian Psychiatry, 2011, Vol 19, Issue 4, p295
- ISSN
1039-8562
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3109/10398562.2011.603333