ABSTRACT
The questionnaire study was developed primarily to explore the degree to which the three psychiatric orientations are actually measurable and the extent to which they comprise independent ideological dimensions. This chapter begins by postulating three major orientations—psychotherapeutic, somatotherapeutic, and sociotherapeutic—each characterized by a broad agreement in views of significant psychiatric issues. It considers the degree to which each postulated orientation actually comprises an internally consistent cluster of beliefs and views about mental illness. The chapter examines whether the postulated psychiatric positions are interdependent or independent of one another in the sense that being high on one scale is or is not systematically associated with performance on another scale. It considers how professionals see themselves in terms of the three psychiatric orientations, using a question about the "most preferred" and "least preferred" orientations. The social workers scored highest on the sociotherapeutic ideology, the psychologists on the psychotherapeutic ideology, and medical psychiatric practitioners on the somatotherapeutic ideology.
