Beyond Diagnosis? Novelty, Need and the Normative in Twenty-First Century Psychiatry. (360G-Wellcome-106612_Z_14_Z)

Psychiatric research is today being transformed by new strategic funding initiatives (e.g. from the Wellcome Trust and the US National Institute of Mental Health). Some of these urge scientists to go beyond diagnosis in investigations of mental illness, and move away from diagnostic texts like the World Health Organization's ICD and the controversial US DSM-5. Many studies instead seek to contribute to new classifications of mental disorders, based on biology, and which could enhance innovation in drug discovery. This University Award project seeks to understand the rationales underlying these strategic (and contested) initiatives, their impact on laboratory research, and their effects on how psychiatrists understand and treat their patients. It uses qualitative methods to do so. Broader questions can then be investigated throughout the Award: about the role of science in generating disease constructs; the place of diagnosis in research and practice; the relationships between the labor atory and the clinic; and the ways in which ascriptions of novelty, need and the normative come to shape, direct and propel biomedicine. The project draws on and contributes significantly to STS and medical sociology concepts, generating findings of relevance and import to a range of audiences within and beyond academia.