Psychiatry rests on the biopsychosocial model rather like a three-legged stool: remove any one of the legs and the stool, and psychiatry, fall over. Another three-legged stool might be that of emotion, cognition and behaviour, each is necessary, but insufficient, for understanding humans. In 'Why psychiatry can't afford to be neurophobic', Bullmore et al give a compelling picture of the complexity and explanatory power of genotype and phenotype in modern psychiatry and neuroscience. They expand phenotype to include behaviour and cognition, and also refer to Reil's vision of psychiatrists as physicians of the mind. Reil (1759-1813) coined the term 'psychiatry' and was concerned with the soul and soul organ, which he considered to be a product of the nervous system. Reil's conception of the soul would be considerably wider than cognitive function and behaviour. Living during the Romantic period, he was concerned with what today might be called emotions, character and self-regulation.
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