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Causal Models in Psychiatric Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Matthew J. Edlund*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas, Houston, Texas 77225, USA

Extract

The nature of causal explanation remains a conceptual difficulty for psychiatric research. Most research workers and clinicians can describe their processes of causal inference with reference to some empirical example close at hand. Yet such demonstrations are themselves based on more fundamental abstract models that are themselves left unstated. Psychiatric classificatory schemata presently used in research possess unwritten, underlying assumptions regarding causality, and these assumptions need examination.

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Comment
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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