Reactive mental disorders: Stressors, personality and symptoms

Abstract

Both DSM-IV (1994) and ICD-10 (1992) state that they are atheoretical with regard to etiology and that the numerous diagnostic labels, such as major depression, panic disorder and so on, carry no implication with regard to etiology. In this way both systems had hoped to avoid controversies concerning the role of psychodynamic, social or biological factors in the underpinnings of various conditions. A further argument advanced in favor of the atheoretical approach was that for many psychiatric disorders the etiology was multi-factorial, complex and even sometimes unknown. This led to the removal of terms such as post-natal depression, reactive psychosis, reactive depression and these were incorporated into the major symptom groups that they represented. On the other hand, with one swoop, both classifications defied their own agnosticism by describing a number of disorders based on the etiology, in this instance factors external to the individual such as substance misuse, organic disorders and a group that could be described as "reactive mental disorders". © 2011 Springer-Verlag Vienna.