ABSTRACT
This chapter locates the normative practice approach (NPA) in the context of other value-sensitive accounts of psychiatry.
I investigate how other value-sensitive perspectives on psychiatric practice contribute to the understanding of psychiatry as a normative practice. I investigate how these other accounts add to the precision and validity of the NPA and, conversely, how these other accounts gain focus and coherence in light of the NPA.
I then review and evaluate the prospects of the self- and context-oriented approach to psychopathology in light of new concepts, such as precision medicine, personalized medicine, P-4 medicine, person-centered psychiatry, and the like.
In the third part, I discuss implications of the contextualized version of the NPA and of the self- and other-oriented approach to psychopathology for residency training in psychiatry. Recognition of normative aspects of psychiatric practice requires certain competences and attitudes. I plead for education with respect to these competencies.
In the last part, I focus on the existential dimension of professionalism. Openness of the professional about his or her own role fulfilment—one’s ideals, but also one’s ambivalences and insufficiencies—may prove to be a decisive factor for the patient to open up. Ability to communicate about the self-referentiality of professional role fulfilment by the professional may help the patient to feel accepted and understood. Tensions and ambivalences with respect to this openness and sensitivity in the current system of mental healthcare are discussed. I give suggestions about how to deal with them and to grow in one’s professional role.
