Brüne Martin
Division of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry and Psychiatric Preventive Medicine, LWL University Hospital, Ruhr-University Bochum, Alexandrinenstr. 1, 44791, Bochum, Germany.
BMC Psychiatry. 2014 Dec 21;14:1695. doi: 10.1186/s12888-014-0364-y.
In 1963, Nicolaas Tinbergen published an article on "the aims and methods of ethology" in which he identified a fundamental framework for the scientific inquiry into the understanding of biological phenomena. In particular, he emphasized to not only study what he called the "proximate" causes, that is, mechanism and ontogeny of a given trait, but to include evolutionary explanations, i.e., the phylogeny and adaptive properties of that trait.
While influential in the field of biology and to some degree medicine, psychiatry has fallen short of adopting Tinbergen's approach. This article aims at discussing why Tinbergen's précis has lost nothing of its attractiveness to psychiatry as a medical discipline. Examples will be given for the analysis of emotions, attachment and psychotherapy. Tinbergen has bequeathed to us a scientific framework that can greatly advance our understanding of psychiatric conditions and improve diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders, with similar potential for medicine in general.
1963年，尼古拉斯·廷贝亨发表了一篇关于“动物行为学的目的和方法”的文章，他在文中确定了一个用于科学探究生物现象理解的基本框架。特别是，他强调不仅要研究他所称的“近因”，即给定性状的机制和个体发育，还要纳入进化解释，即该性状的系统发育和适应性特征。
虽然廷贝亨的方法在生物学领域以及一定程度上在医学领域具有影响力，但精神病学却未能采用他的方法。本文旨在探讨为何廷贝亨的概述对作为医学学科的精神病学仍具有吸引力。将给出情感、依恋和心理治疗分析的示例。廷贝亨留给我们一个科学框架，它能够极大地推进我们对精神疾病状况的理解，改善精神障碍的诊断和治疗，对整个医学领域也具有类似的潜力。
