The Advantages of Studying Psychological Phenomena Rather Than Psychiatric Diagnoses

Abstract

This article argues that research efforts to understand the nature of the psychological processes underlying such psychological phenomena as formal thought disorder, delusions, and hallucinations will be more successful if the phenomena themselves are studied directly than if diagnostic categories (e.g., schizophrenia) are studied. This point is illustrated through references to the study of cognitive mechanisms underlying symptoms of schizophrenia. However, the advantages of the symptom approach are also applicable to the study of other types of psychopathology and other types of underlying mechanisms (e.g., physiological or biochemical mechanisms). © 1986 American Psychological Association.