Classification of Mental Illness: The Value of Certain French Nosological Concepts

Abstract

The thesis of this paper is that a reintroduction of the concepts of psychosis derived from French psychiatry would be of value in terms of clinical precision, research and treatment. The relatively few diagnostic entities employed in North America in the classification of psychoses other than depressive and organic is contrasted with a more extended French nosological system. The demonstrated usefulness of the precise classification of depressive syndromes suggests that similar discrimination applied to other psychoses would be a promising area for research.

An objective study of relationships and discontinuities between paranoid schizophrenia and Kretschmer's syndrome of sensitive delusions of reference

“…In a recent account of the taxonomy of schizophrenia, Hays (1978) implied that one type of paranoid psychosis, closely resembling the illnesses originally described by Kretschmer (1952) as the syndrome of sensitive delusions of reference, might be a separate entity. Kretschmer's formulation has endured (Jones (1974)), but it may be criticised on the grounds that, though cases representative of his description are certainly found, some patients' illnesses do not continue to display the relatively simple initial set of symptoms he regarded as characteristic, but go on to a polysymptomatic state (Rasmussen (1978)). Patients in Hays' original series whose illnesses started in the manner described by Kretschmer are reviewed to see what factors were associated with this adverse development.…”