ABSTRACT
Classification of the neuroses is a branch of the wider problem of the classification of all mental and nervous conditions. A succession of attempts have been made to put classification upon a scientific basis. Classification of the neuroses, based as it invariably is upon the form or symptom-presentation which a particular disorder may take, is bound to be unsatisfactory and unscientific. Psychological classification, based on current academic psychology, merely results in showing the latter’s bankruptcy when faced with the phenomena of clinical psychiatry. The custom of basing a classification of the neuroses upon the presenting symptom is reduced to absurdity when we find the ever-increasing list of phobias placed in a scientific nomenclature and used as though each was the designation of a specific disorder.
