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Causal Models in Psychiatric Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Matthew J. Edlund
Matthew J. Edlund*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas, Houston, Texas 77225, USA
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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
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 148 , Issue 6 , June 1986 , pp. 713 - 717
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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