Diagnosis-Treatment Relationships in Psychiatry: A Statistical Analysis

Abstract

The diagnostic classificatory system in use in modern psychiatry appears to be the product of countless acts of “subjective factor analysis”. Psychiatrists have observed that particular symptoms tend to occur in clusters, and these clusters have been labelled and given a status akin to that of disease entities in general medicine. It is a continually developing empirical system, and it is customary to reexamine such systems periodically to assess the state of current practice and its validity.