Reconquest of the Subjective

Psychiatric research over the past three decades has now acquired the esteem it clearly deserves. Since empirical research presupposes definition of the object one studies and availability of instruments to measure it, operationalisation of diagnosis and development of psychometric instruments have become major concerns for psychiatry. This progress was promoted to a large degree by biological psychiatry. The search for biological underpinnings of abnormal human behaviour and the study of the efficacy and mechanism of action of biological treatments are both contingent on the use of standardised diagnoses and objective measurement. Biological psychiatry moved in recent years from a minority position into the mainstream, and its methods became the standard approach, especially in research.