[The self-identity of psychiatry in the 21st century].

Abstract

The relationship of mentally ill patients and the relational society has constantly changed during the course of history. The changes are true reflexions of the given society. In the management of behaviours disturbing community life medical treatment, law enforcement and religious measures change periodically, sometimes one, sometimes the other comes to the fore. One of the most influential spiritual currents of the 20th century has been the dismantling of large institutions, called deinstitutionalisation, which process could be experienced by the currently active professional generations. New ideas have followed each other since the turn of the millennium at an ever-accelerating pace. The postmodern age threatens to fragment our profession. The mentally ill person finds less and less space for the global suffering of his or her person to be heard. The system forces the professional to reflect the mental illness as a malfunction of an organ, or name it in the form of a recently published linguistic invention (diagnostic category). The global nature of the person is lost, in its biological, psychological, social and spiritual wholeness. This paper searches for and tries to articulate modern, forward-looking clues to the identity of psychiatry (and the psychiatrist). The facts of the subject of the person come to the fore, such as self-identity, value-drivenness, intentionality, future-orientation, and the spiritual dimension.