ABSTRACT
The central problem in the study of maladjustment is the classification and description of its various types. Clinically we are able to recognize the recurrence of regular patterns of symptoms, which justifies our describing disturbed children as hostile, withdrawn, depressed, hyper-active, and so on. But the concepts to which such terms refer have grown up impressionistically, and the terms themselves are used loosely and in rather different ways by clinicians according to their different theoretical backgrounds. To give our concepts a valid empirical foundation we have to go back to the observation of actual maladjusted behaviour in many children, and then arrange the symptoms into what would give the cleanest classification. The attempt of the present writer to do this has been reported elsewhere ; 75 it resulted in an instrument for diagnosing type and degree of maladjustment as observed in the school, the family, and the institution. 76 The procedure adopted was the trial of successive groupings of the symptoms of disturbed behaviour until it was felt that reasonably stable ‘syndromes’ had been achieved.
