Precision psychiatry: promise for the future or rehash of a fossilised foundation?

Precision psychiatry promises to improve psychiatric practice by grounding diagnosis and treatment in biological markers, but a conceptual analysis of its foundations reveals they are obsolete and flawed. Mental suffering cannot be reduced to biological essences, because biological processes alone cannot capture qualia, meaning, or abnormality without context. Despite its intentions, precision psychiatry does not offer a sufficiently promising alternative to current phenotype-based classification systems.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Precision psychiatry is currently described as an approach that would bring significant advance to psychiatric clinical practice. Theaim of this article is to investigate Precision Psychiatry's promise for the future; should we substantially invest in this new approach? Thearticle is based on a review of the literature and reports a conceptual analysis. A critical examination of Precision Psychiatry's foundationsshows us that its fundaments are obsolete and flawed: we cannot reduce mental suffering to essences in biology. It is problematic to statethat biological processes hold and capture qualia and meaning, and in themselves and without context would hold and capture somethinglike abnormality. Despite its good efforts, precision psychiatry does not represent a sufficiently promising alternative to the phenotyping thatcomes with the current classification systems.