Conceptual competence in psychiatry

Awais Aftab and Scott Waterman have an interesting article on conceptual competence in psychiatry. As they say:-

The considerable challenges facing our discipline [psychiatry] will not be met without rethinking our approach to educating and training the next generation of psychiatrists, specifically attending to the implicit—and thus rarely confronted, examined, and questioned—conceptual foundations of the field.

The four elements of conceptual competence are: assumptions and questions; tools;  discourse; and humility. Training can improve conceptual competence.

I asked Awais Aftab in a tweet what the implications for practice are and he gave an interesting and important initial response (see conversation). I don’t think all practitioners need to be philosophers of psychiatry but they do need to understand there is a mind/body problem. I also think it may be worthwhile emphasising how cultural competence overlaps with conceptual competence.