Marriage and Mental Disease: a Study in Social Psychopathology

The problem of mental disease has been approached in many different ways, and chemical, anatomical, biological and psychological methods have been employed. In certain cases it has been possible to obtain satisfactory results by the use of one isolated method: the serological and anatomical approach has given us a useful solution to the problem of general paresis; the genetic approach has been equally useful in the study of mental deficiency. Such great results may explain the prevailing tendency in psychiatric research to attack all the problems of mental disease by the systematic use of one single method, in the hope that the final result is only a matter of time and of technical refinement. One author believes in the anatomical approach, another in the chemical; and there is a tendency to exclude other” methods, in the belief that they cannot give results of basic importance. Psychiatry also has its eclectics, but generally the most intensive research work is carried out by the various “schools,” and with a definite exclusiveness of methods.