Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T07:43:09.950Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Empirical Prototypical Approach to the Definition of Psychiatric Illness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2018

Juan E. Mezzich
Juan E. Mezzich*
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The facts that neither the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) nor any other major standard diagnostic system have offered a full definition of psychiatric illness and that earnest definitional attempts reported in the literature (e.g. Spitzer & Endicott, 1978) have not received wide acceptance, have led distinguished nosologists (e.g. Kendell, 1985) to suggest that all we can say about psychiatric classifications is that they are classifications of kinds of problems which psychiatrists currently deal with. However, one immediate difficulty with this characterisation is that it is based on what psychiatrists do, when in fact psychiatric problems are dealt with also by other professionals of various types and levels of training. Another difficulty is that it implies that there is not even an approximate common denominator or core concept underlying the various forms of psychiatric disorder listed in the ICD or other standard diagnostic systems.

Type
I. Nosological Aspects
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 154 , Issue S4: Psychiatric Diagnosis: Nosological, Biological and Psychological Aspects , May 1989 , pp. 42 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cantor, N., Smith, E. E., French, R. D., et al (1980) Psychiatric diagnosis as prototype categorisation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 89, 181–193.Google Scholar
Cantor, N., Mischel, W. & Schwartz, J. (1982) A prototype analysis of psychological situations. Cognitive Psychology, 14, 45–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
American Psychiatric Association. (1980) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn) (DSM-III). Washington: American Pyschiatric Association.Google Scholar
Cohen, H. (1953) The evolution of the concept of disease. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 48, 155–160.Google Scholar
Eysenck, J. H. (1970) A dimensional system of psychodiagnostics. In New Approaches to Personality Classification (ed. Mahrer, A. R.). New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Fabrega, H. (1974) Disease and Social Behavior. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.Google Scholar
Foulds, G. A. & Bedford, A. (1975) Hierarchy of classes of personal illness. Psychological Medicine, 5, 181–192.Google Scholar
Freund, J. (1968) The Sociology of Max Weber. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Guze, S. B. (1978) Discussion: Definition and labeling of mental illness. In Critical Issues in Psychiatric Diagnosis (eds Spitzer, R. L. & Klein, D. F.). New York: Raven Press.Google Scholar
Horowitz, I. M., Post, D. L., French, R. S., et al (1981) The prototype as a construct in abnormal psychology: 2. Clarifying disagreement in psychiatric judgments. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 90, 575–585.Google Scholar
Kendell, R. E. (1975) The Role of Diagnosis in Psychiatry. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications.Google Scholar
Kendell, R. E. (1985) What are mental disorders. In Science, Practice and Social Policy: Issues in Classifying Mental Disorders (eds Freedman, A. M., Brotman, R., Silverman, I., et al). New York: Human Sciences Press.Google Scholar
Kendell, R. E. (1988) What is a case: Food for thought for epidemiologists. Archives of General Psychiatry, 45, 374–376.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klein, D. F. (1978) A proposed definition of mental illness. In Critical Issues in Psychiatric Diagnosis (eds Spitzer, R. L., Klein, D. F.). New York: Raven Press.Google Scholar
Kraüpl, Taylor F. (1971) A logical analysis of the medico-psychological concept of disease. Psychological Medicine, 1, 356–364; 2, 7-16.Google Scholar
Linder, R. (1965) Diagnosis: Description or prescription? A case study in the psychology of diseases. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 20, 1081–1092.Google Scholar
Maxwell, A. E. (1972) Difficulties in a dimensional description of symptomatology. British Journal of Psychiatry, 121, 19–26.Google Scholar
Mehl, P. E. & Rosen, A. (1955) Antecedent probability and the efficiency of psychometric signs, patterns or cutting scores. Psychological Bulletin, 52, 194–216.Google Scholar
Meyer, A. (1987) Fundamental conceptions of dementia praecox. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 34, 331–336.Google Scholar
Mezzich, J. E., Dow, J. T., Rich, C. L., et al (1981) Developing an efficient clinical information system for a comprehensive psychiatric institute: The Initial Evaluation Form. Behaviour Research Methods and Instrumentation, 13, 464–478.Google Scholar
Moore, M. S. (1978) Discussion of the Spitzer-Endicott and Klein proposed definition of mental disorder (illness). In Critical Issues in Psychiatric Diagnosis (eds Spitzer, R. L. & Klein, D. F.). New York: Raven Press.Google Scholar
Rosch, E. & Mervis, C. (1975) Family resemblance: Studies in the internal structure of categories. Cognitive Psychology, 7, 513–605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scadding, J. E. (1967) Diagnosis: The clinician and the computer. Lancet, ii, 877–882.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seguin, C. A. (1946) The concept of disease. Psychosomatic Medicine, 8, 252–257.Google Scholar
Spitzer, R. L. & Endicott, J. (1978) Medical and mental disorder: Proposed definition and criteria. In Critical Issues in Psychiatric Diagnosis (eds Spitzer, R. L. & Klein, D. F.). New York: Raven Press.Google Scholar
Strauss, J. S. (1973) Diagnostic models and the nature of psychiatric disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry, 19, 445–449.Google Scholar
Sturt, E. (1981) Hierarchical patterns in the distribution of psychiatric symptoms. Psychological Medicine, 11, 783–794.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, L. (1953) Philosophical Investigations (G.E.M. Anscombe, transl.) Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications.Google Scholar
World Health Organization. (1978) Manual of the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9). Geneva.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.