Phenomenology: An alternative approach to diagnosis of mental disease

Psychiatrists throughout the country have been struggling for years with the problem of our present diagnostic system and particularly with the diagnosis of schizophrenia. DSM-II, 1 revised to alleviate some of the vagueness and unreality of DSM-I, 2 has led to more controversy, and recent large-scale, cross-cultural studies, 3 still in their infancy, have merely substantiated the old, but painful quip that a consultation among four psychiatrists will lead to five diagnoses. We believe that past efforts have failed to reconcile the diversity and inconsistency in psychiatric diagnosis because of a failure to utilize a precise, unbiased approach in diagnosis. The phenomenologic method, used in many parts of Europe, offers such an approach to classification and diagnosis of mental illness. Because of its importance as an alternative approach to diagnosis and its unfamiliarity in this country, we will briefly describe the philosophic development of phenomenology and illustrate its practical application to the definition and diagnosis of schizophrenia.