ABSTRACT
Classical psychiatry was largely concerned with the description of symptoms and the establishment of syndromes; it seldom ventured far beyond the descriptive realm. Psychoanalysis attempted to explain the causes of syndromes and symptoms and for that reason seemed to consider it justified in calling its approach 'dynamic'. In searching for a dynamic theory of anxiety and hysteria, then, ones may dismiss psychotism from our search, and concentrate rather on neuroticism. Functional psychiatric disorders are not 'diseases' at all, in the sense that malaria or cancer or haemophilia may be said to be diseases which a person may be said to have or not to have. In more modern times a more explicitly dimensional theory of temperament has been advanced, particularly by Jordan, by O. Gross, and by C. G. Jung. Descriptively this general theory has been strengthened very much by a large number of extensive experimental and statistical studies which the writer has summarized.
