French empirical criteria for the diagnosis of non-affective non-organic psychoses. Comparison between the criteria suggested by Professors Pull and Pichot and those of DSM-III-R

Abstract

At the end of the 19th century, when the current psychiatric diagnostic concepts used in most countries were being elaborated, in Germany particularly by Kraepelin, French-speaking psychiatrists, who until then had dominated European psychiatry, continued to develop their own system. This difference in classification is most apparent in the non-organic, non-affective psychoses. Although some of the French names used may be unfamiliar to anglophones, when the new 'consensus' criteria developed by Professors Pull and Pichot are compared with the DSM-III-R criteria it becomes apparent that the French and American concepts are converging.