ABSTRACT
There has been an ongoing and perhaps necessary tension between diagnosis for descriptive and research purposes and diagnosis for clinical and therapeutic ones. For example, attempts to make DSM-III (American Psychiatric Association, 1980) reflect what is observable, describable, and measurable—a reaction against the inconsistencies and subjectivities of its predecessors—pleased many researchers but frustrated many clinicians. In response to practitioners’ complaints, the designers of DSM-IV tried to make that edition more sensitive to clinicians’ needs (Frances, 1995). Nonetheless, the shortcomings of this edition further illustrate the inherent and insoluble problems in developing a taxonomy of psychiatric disorders that can serve both clinical and research purposes.
