In spite of the importance biological psychiatry has attained in the last years and the predominance it has been given, some times markedly, in some residence programs the world over, the psychotherapeutic attitude —when not psychotherapy itself—in practice is still the psychiatrist’s indispensable tool and hallmark.

Not failing to recognize in any way the importance of the contribution of biology to psychiatry in the treatment of our patients, there exists from the very beginning of our discipline, and even before, and indispensable psychotherapeutic attitude. It accompanies us in our common everyday work and has made the development of different psychotherapeutic techniques possible, which all aims at providing the patients’ integral care with the essential human element, i.e. the element based on a conception of the physical, mental and social well-being of the individual, so extolled since so long ago in our defi nition of health. Since the essential contributions of psychoanalysis, and the fi rst attempt to rigorously systematize the psychotherapeutic technique, there have been many and very different intervention modalities in this fi eld. However, all are based on the importance of the human relationship and the word in the treatment of human pain.

We could say that the relationship we pretend to outline here is silent, as psychotherapy may be in many occasions: Methodology is to science what psychotherapy is to psychiatry.

Alejandro Rojas-Urrego
Editor invitado
Director
Instituto Colombiano de Psicoanálisis

Carlos Gómez-Restrepo
Editor invitado
Director
Revista Colombiana de Psiquiatría