Organic Mental Disorders

Abstract

There is a traditional distinction made in psychopathology between the so-called organic and functional disorders. The latter type of disorder is generally viewed as a reaction to some environmental or psychosocial stress or as a condition in which the presence of a specific organic etiological factor is strongly suspected, but not proven. The anxiety disorders are examples of the first alternative, and schizophrenia is an example of the second. Organic mental disorders are those conditions that can be more or less definitively associated with temporary or permanent dysfunction of the brain. Thus, individuals who have these illnesses are frequently described as “brain-damaged” patients or patients who have “organic brain syndromes.” It is clear that recent developments in psychopathological research and theory have gone a long way toward breaking down this distinction, and it is becoming increasingly clear that many of the schizophrenic, mood, and attentional disorders have their bases in some alteration of brain function. Nevertheless, the clinical phenomenology, assessment methods, and treatment management procedures for patients generally described as brain-damaged are sufficiently unique that the traditional functional versus organic distinction is probably worth retaining. However, the term “organic patient” is rarely used in practice, and characterizations are more often made using the terms dementia, delirium, and amnesia, or specific neuro-behavioral syndromes.