Theory Determines What Psychiatry and Medicine Think and Do
Psychology Today | 21.12.2025 22:24
Theory is our basic scientific tool for establishing knowledge. It dictates how we conduct patient care, teaching, and research.1 Once adopted, it simply becomes automatic, those guided by it typically unaware of its power and often unable to articulate it. While familiar scientific methods, such as randomized controlled trials, define how we conduct studies, philosopher Karl Popper emphasizes that theory determines what research questions we will examine with these methods.2
