정서장애의 최신 분류와 진단의 논쟁점들

Issues in Recent Classifications and Diagnosis o f Affective Disorders

The classification of affective disorders were reviewed from a variety of theoretical frames of reference. None of them, however, is satisfactory in terms of categorizing clinical characteristics. Molecular biology, which was introduced in psychiarty a few years ago, may bring considerable light on taxonomy of mood syndromes in the near future. For instance, affective disorders may comprise of heterogenous groups which have different genetic loci on different chromosomes. Currently, the reliability and validity of all diagnostic approaches is estimated on clinical diagnosis made by so called “experienced psychiatrist(s)”. It is well known that diagnositic agreement between them is low. Unless the nature of affective diseases become clear, any method for diagnosing affective illnesses, either clinical or biological ones, would have many limitations.