Peer Group Influences on the Choice of a Psychiatric Viewpoint

Abstract

Introduction I DEOLOGIES do not gain wide acceptance within the generation in which they are conceived but must await the succeeding generations to attract followers. This widely accepted observation applies to psychiatry, for one generally does not find a psychiatrist changing his theoretical framework after having worked within it for any length of time. If a new conceptual framework is to gain adherents, it must find them among newcomers to the field. The relative inability of established psychiatrists to change Provides some stability to the system of Psychiatry. If, as Jerome Frank⁵ suggests, the important factor for a psychiatrist's success is his having a viewpoint, regardless of which one, then this relative rigidity is advantageous. On the other hand this resistance to change can act as a governor on the evolution of psychiatry because older concepts make way for new ones only with the