A transatlantic view of the diagnosis of depressions according to the DSM III: I. Controversies and misunderstandings in depression diagnosis

doi:10.1016/0010-440X(82)90081-5

Comprehensive Psychiatry

Volume 23, Issue 4, July–August 1982, Pages 315-329

https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-440X(82)90081-5 Get rights and content

Abstract

The diagnosis of depressions is chaotic. The purpose of this essay is to answer the question whether the DSM III creates order in this chaos. For this purpose the first part presents a survey of the existing classification systems and their shortcomings. The principal cause of confusion is identified as the fact that the traditional systems are based on a single criterion: symptomatology, or aetiology, or course. However, definition of one of these factors does not warrant a reliable conclusion about the nature of the other two. For example: the statement that a depression is of neurotic origin implies nothing about its symptomatology or course. The only possibility to avoid confusion is to be found in a classification system which is consistently three-dimensional, that is to say: based on simultaneous but independent qualification of each of the three above mentioned criteria separately. The classification system as introduced in its essential form by this author some 20 years ago, fulfills this requirement. It is briefly discussed with reference to the empirical data on which it is based.

Part II will test the depression classification system offered by the DSM III against the desiderata formulated in Part I.

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¹: H.M. van Praag, M.D., Ph.D.: Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Utrecht, Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Professor and Chairman, Department of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center, Bronx, New York.

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A transatlantic view of the diagnosis of depressions according to the DSM III: I. Controversies and misunderstandings in depression diagnosis

Abstract

J Affect Disord

J Affect Disord

J Affect Disord

Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders

Am Psychiat Assoc

The significance of biological factors in the diagnosis of depression. Part I: Biochemical variables; Part II: Hormonal variables

Comp Psychiat

The position of biological psychiatry among the psychiatric disciplines

Comp Psychiat

Diagnostische Voraussetzungen der Depressionsbehandlung

Psychiatry II. De psychosen

Primary and secondary affective disorders

Symptom patterns in primary and secondary depression

Arch Gen Psychiat

Differentiation of primary affective illness from situational, symptomatic, and secondary depressions

Arch Gen Psychiat

Aufteilung der endogenen Psychosen

Zur Atiologie und Nosologie endogener depressiever Psychosen

A study of bipolar (manic-depressive) and unipolar recurrent depressive psychoses

Acta Psychiat Scand

Diagnosing schizophrenic and schizo-affective psychoses

How useful in the DSM III?

The vital syndrome interview: a structured standard interview for the recognition and registration of the vital depressive symptom complex

Psychiat Neurol Neurochir

Psychotropic drugs. A guide for the practitioner