A short resumé is given of an article from 1972 by prof. dr. H.G.M. Rooijmans. In this article Rooijmans criticizes the then popular tendency to make ideological and one-sided statements about psychiatry and psychiatric disorders. He discusses critically the controversy between the medical and social models of mental illness. His views are commented upon in the light of further developments with respect to psychiatry as an empirical science and as a practice. Special consideration is given to the development of new classification systems, the biopsychosocial model and the empirical science of psychiatry .