Psychiatric Eclecticism: a cognitive view

Pluralism is necessary in psychiatry to compensate for the errors and biases characteristic of the equipment we use to appraise clinical "reality"--our own perceptual-cognitive apparatus. Our attention to clinical situations is skewed: we notice "data" consistent with past assumptions and formulations, and consequently, those views are reinforced by our perceptions. The eclectic posture involves approaching each clinical situation from multiple theoretical perspectives and settling on a perspective that most closely agrees with the patient's needs and wishes without sacrificing the best information available to the psychiatrist. Such eclecticism defines the psychiatrist's role as that of a broad-based scholar who can apply what he knows to the clinical situation. The author discusses the implications for clinical practice and psychiatric education.