The ongoing debate whether to look at psychiatric disorders from a categorical or a dimensional perspective provokes objections, whatever viewpoint is taken. On the one hand, a dimensional approach seems to be superior in terms of predictive validity. On the other hand, the currently applied categorical approach, its usefulness and simplicity should not be neglected.

To demonstrate a possibility to combine the categorical and the dimensional perspective at the same time.

We introduce a diagnostic map that was calculated by robust nonmetric multidimensional scaling based on AMDP symptom profiles of N = 100 patients with schizophrenic and affective disorders.

In the diagnostic map, a manic, a depressive, and a non-affective cluster clearly emerged. At the same time, the mania dimension (r = 0.82), the depression dimension (r = 0.68), and the apathy dimension (r = 0.74) showed high multiple regression values in the map (Figure 1).

We found the association and quality of mood symptoms to be a structuring principle in a diagnostic map. We demonstrated that this approach represents a promising way of combining the categorical and the dimensional perspective. As a practical implementation of these findings, a multidimensional diagnostic map could serve as an automated diagnostic tool based on psychopathological symptom profiles.

[Figure 1]