Psychiatric Disorders and Reactions: Definitions and Manner of Recording

In setting up the definitions of psychiatric conditions, the term “disorder” has been used for the designation of the generic group of the specific reactions, while the specific reaction types have been termed “reactions.” In classifying psychoneuroses, the dynamics of the psychopathology was chosen as the basis. Of necessity, a few terms remained descriptive (symptomatic). In general, an attempt has been made to retain only such formerly used terms as could be fitted into this general plan and omit categories which are “catch-alls,” such as “Simple adult maladjustment,” “Constitutional psychopathic state,” etc.