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Difficulties in a Dimensional Description of Symptomatology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

A. E. Maxwell
A. E. Maxwell*
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry. De Crespigny Park, London, S.E.5
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Torgerson (1968) has suggested that the most appropriate form of classification of functional mental illnesses may prove to be partly categorical and partly dimensional. Everitt, Gourlay and Kendell (1971) have tended to agree with this conclusion since their attempt at validating existing diagnostic categories by means of cluster analysis proved to be only partially successful. In the present paper the dimensional approach is considered in some detail and it is shown that it has limitations which are due in part to the distributional properties of the data which research psychiatrists record for their patients, and in part to the fact that some key symptoms occur only rarely. In the final paragraphs of the paper an attempt is made to clarify the dimensional and categorical roles in the description of functional illnesses. In doing so it becomes clear that some difficulties remain unresolved.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 121 , Issue 560 , July 1972 , pp. 19 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1972 

References

Cooper, J. E., and Kendell, R. E. et al. (1972). Psychiatric Diagnosis in New York and London. Maudsley Monographs, No. 20. Oxford Univ. Press. (In press).Google Scholar
Everitt, B. S., Gourlay, A. J., and Kendell, R. E. (1971). ‘An attempt at validation of traditional psychiatric syndromes by cluster analysis.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 119, 399–412.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lawley, D. N., and Maxwell, A. E. (1971). Factor Analysis as a Statistical Method, 2nd edition. London: Butterworths.Google Scholar
Maxwell, A. E. (1971). ‘Multivariate statistical methods and classification problems.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 119, 121–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Torgerson, W. S. (1968). ‘Multidimensional representation of similarity structures,’ in Classification in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (ed. Katz, Cole and Barton, ). Washington D.C. Google Scholar
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