Paranoid schizophrenia, neurotic depression and "normality" — synchronic and diachronic taxonomic distinctions based on non-clinical indicator variables

Summary

Authors obtained confirmation with small variation, of previous experimental results on interpersonal relationships in restrict social groups, published elsewhere. Taxinomic psychopathological distinctions are retrieved, in a more clear-cut manner, with better individual separation, than in those previous studies. A brief discussion is made on the epistemic problems raised by the type of studies we are doing (since 1974), and by the possibility of a proposal of an alternative type of understanding and approach to the usual psychopathological indicators. Other complementary methods, are advanced, as they have already been developed and used with significant results. The proposal of a model for the generation of symptoms seems now to us to be feesible, if we introduce a set of unifying principles to organize the multifarious variety of data and approaches already available in many domains of Psychiatry — taking into consideration the biological, psychological and the social domain. The scope of this paper is nevertheless to report a third reconfirmation of results which have theoretical implications and which may have raised some doubts about their validity and reliability. With our samples growing to 255 subjects, it seems to us that reliability and validity are not already the main problems to be discussed. Rather the meaning of these data as well as their contribution, together with data obtained from other sources would be the central issue if we win to attain a better understanding of psychopathological phenomena.