ABSTRACT
Our findings about diagnosis again run counter to theory. The difficulties in diagnosis lay, not in the choice between an adjustment reaction of adolescence and psychiatric illness, but in determining the exact diagnosis of the psychiatric illness. We could, however, support current theory at the initial interview when ' the sickness presented formidable diagnostic problems. But it soon became apparent that these problems were due more to manifestations of several clinical disorders in one clinical picture and unclear definition of the diagnostic categories than to anything related to adolescent turmoil. Without question, there is diagnostic difficulty which often is not resolved until time has passed, but it is not between turmoil and illness, and in truth does not seem to be related as much to turmoil as to some of the problems inherent in the manifestations of psychiatric illness. Furthermore, these patients, rather than showing unstable clinical pictures over the years, gradually tended to fit into more clearly differentiated and usual diagnostic categories.
