On Psychiatry

Above all, this is necessary for psychiatry, because only when we are able to observe the corresponding facts correctly will we get on the right track. And the facts of psychiatry are actually even more difficult to observe because they require greater impartiality than the facts of physical laws. For in human life, as soon as one moves from the so-called healthy, relatively healthy, to the relatively sick, there is actually almost no possibility of completely isolating the person. The human being certainly develops into a complete individuality, into an isolated life. He does this precisely through his psyche, but through that which deviates in the psyche from the straight line of development. What deviates in the physical from the so-called normal development is not so. I can only hint at this, of course; one would otherwise have to make hours of explanations if one wanted to prove it in detail. It is not the case that one can look at it in isolation; the human being is much more of a social being, even in the deeper sense, than one usually thinks. And in particular, mental illnesses can actually only rarely be assessed on the basis of, say, the biography of the individual, the isolated individual. That is almost completely impossible.