Diagnosis and ideal types: a contribution to psychiatric classification.

Most recent discussions of classification and diagnosis in psychiatry ignore the underlying methodologic and philosophic issues. The authors directly address these issues by redefining a classical approach that was already employed in psychiatry by Karl Jaspers in his General Psychopathology, This conceptual approach, termed .'ideal types," was first developed by the sociologist Max Weber. Many diagnostic entities of clinical psychiatry, such as schizophrenia, manic-depressive illness, and the various neuroses and personality disorders, can be best conceived, the authors argue, as ideal types. After contrasting ideal types with monothetic and polythetic concepts, the authors show how ideal types provide a scientific vocabulary that is capable of both guiding the practice of the clinician and of structuring the investigations of the Researcher. 1987 by Grune & Stratton, Inc.