Schizoaffective States: Understandability and Outcome

Abstract

According to Kendell (Kendell, 1975) the classification of psychiatric disorders should “cleave nature at its joints”. The central task of nosology then is to discover ‘nature's joints‘. There are, generally speaking, two major approaches to this task, which as Kendell has outlined, trace their origins to the epistemological debates between Platonic and Aristotelian schools. The first is the empirical approach from Locke and Hume, which is currently in ascendancy as exemplified by DSM—III and DSM—III—R, (American Psychiatric Association, 1980, 1987) while the second can be regarded as the ‘rational‘ approach deriving from the philosophy of Kant (Varghese, 1988). Table 1 outlines the differences between nosological approaches.