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Mood Disorders pp 43–63Cite as

Clinical and Familial Subtypes of Mood Disorders: Observation, Opinion, and Purpose

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Part of the book series: Critical Issues in Psychiatry ((CIPS))

Abstract

Classification has the general purpose of promoting understanding. In science, the ordering of information seeks to make past observation more intelligible and future events more predictable. It also acts as an implicit guide to those who are conducting research into various phenomena. Principally, the strategies employed in classification are the clustering of like phenomena into various groups or distributing them upon a continuum or dimension of change. Observation of how relationships among the phenomena change over time adds a sophistication to either strategy. Charles Darwin devoted his life to one grand classification—to the development of a systematic arrangement by which all living and extinct organisms are united by complex, radiating, and circuitous lines of affinities into a few grand classes.2 He rested his theory of the origin of the species upon the meticulous clustering of the wide variety of phenomena that he observed during his voyage with the “Beagle.”

The classification, or avoidance of classification, which I would propose is: first, to determine whether the depression is severe or mild—melancholia or neurasthenia, descriptively speaking; and, of course, there are many grades. Next . . . on what discoverable influences does it depend: age; constitutional morbid trends; lifelong environmental factors, recent more acutely disturbing ones? What, in sum, is the presumptive balance of environmental forces responsible for the illness as against inherited ones. . . .Has the morbid condition . . . established an autonomy? Have the patient’s character and surroundings worked to his advantage or disadvantage? These are points to weigh rather than points on which to classify . . . because we have no sure means of distinguishing exactly the numerous cases in each case. . . . .No doubt increasing knowledge will bring an improved . . . classification system based on etiology . . . whether it comes by way of genetics, psychology, or somatic psychology, it will be welcome so long as it is useful and valid. Sir Aubrey Lewis1 (1938)

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

    Peter C. Whybrow M.D.

  2. University of Tennessee College of Medicine and Baptist Memorial Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, USA

    Hagop S. Akiskal M.D.

  3. University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

    William T. McKinney Jr. M.D.

Authors
  1. Peter C. Whybrow M.D.
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  2. Hagop S. Akiskal M.D.
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  3. William T. McKinney Jr. M.D.
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© 1984 Springer-Verlag, New York

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Whybrow, P.C., Akiskal, H.S., McKinney, W.T. (1984). Clinical and Familial Subtypes of Mood Disorders: Observation, Opinion, and Purpose. In: Mood Disorders. Critical Issues in Psychiatry. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2729-5_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2729-5_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-9692-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-2729-5

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