Abstract
Psychiatric nosology is to psychiatry what the soul is to individual human beings. Like the soul, nosology also continues to remain at the existential centre of psychiatry, but all the same continues to remain as elusive and indefinable. Psychiatry promises and aspires to deal with mental disorders but has never made any serious attempt at defining or understanding what the mind is. The discipline of psychiatry is yet to come up with a universally acceptable and comprehensive definition of mental disorders. Psychiatry is an offshoot of the extension of scientific methodologies to study the mental and behavioural disorders, but paradoxically the mental dimension of man is predominantly beyond the scope and ambit of those very methodologies. Direct empirical observation of mental dimension is not possible through human faculties. The mental dimension of man, for most of us, is an ‘inferred reality’. As a natural corollary to this is the expected predicament that mental disorders cannot be defined with greater precision or definitiveness than our capacity to either understand, or define the dimension to which it refers to, that is the mind. It is imperative therefore that we first try to understand what mind is, to better understand the mental disorders and thus be able to classify them more rationally and meaningfully. All psychiatric nosologies will also have to contain a mechanism to assimilate the imperatives of socio-cultural variations.
An erratum of this chapter can be found under DOI 10.1007/978-81-322-1674-2_33
P.K. Singh, Junior Resident
An erratum to this chapter can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-1674-2_33
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Nosology—Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia
- 2.
- 3.
Report of the Indian Psychiatric Society’s Task Force on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-5 (2012).
References
Avasthi, A. (2011). Indianizing psychiatry—Is there a case enough. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 53(2), 111–120.
Dalal, P. K., & Sivakumar, T. (2009). Moving towards ICD-11 and DSM-V: Concept and evolution of psychiatric classification. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 51, 310–319.
Goldgerg, D. (2010). Should our major classifications of mental disorders be revised? The British Journal of Psychiatry, 196, 255–256.
Jabr, F. (2012). Psychiatry’s diagnostic guidebook gets its first major update in 30 years. Scientific American, May 7, 2012, 6.
Jacob, K. S. (2010). Indian psychiatry and classification of psychiatric disorders. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 52, 104–109.
Khandelwal, S. K. (2000). Classification of mental disorders : Need for a common language. In R. Srinivasamurthy (Ed.), Mental Health in India: Essays in Honour of Professor N.N. Wig. Bangalore: People’s Action for Mental Health.
Malhotra, S. (2007). Acute and transient psychosis: A paradigmatic approach. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 49, 233–243.
Murthy, R. S., & Wig, N. N. (2001). Psychiatric diagnosis and classification in developing Countries. WPA Book-Psychiatric Classification.
Pearce, J. M. S. (2011). Naming diseases. Hektoen International A Journal of Medical Humanities, 3(4), (internet article).
Rao, A. V. (1971). Classification of depression. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 13, 21–26.
Rosenberg, C. (2006). Contested boundaries: Psychiatry, disease, and diagnosis. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 49(3), 407–424.
Shamasundar, C. (2008). Relevance of ancient Indian wisdom to modern mental health—A few examples. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 50(2), 138–143.
Singh, G., & Tewari, S. K. (1980). Morbid grief—its clinical manifestation and proposed classification. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 22, 74–80.
Teja, J. S. (1971). Proposed classification of “other psychoses” for use in India. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 13, 7–13.
Varma, V. K. (1971). Classification of psychiatric disorders for use in India (neuroses). Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 13, 1–6.
Wig, N. N., & Singh, G. (1967). A proposed classification of psychiatric disorders for use in India. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 8, 157–171.
World Health Organization (1992). International classification of disease 10. Clinical descriptions and diagnostic guidelines. Geneva: WHO.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer India
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Singh, P.K. (2015). Psychiatric Nosology, Its Philosophy and Science. In: Malhotra, S., Chakrabarti, S. (eds) Developments in Psychiatry in India. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-1674-2_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-1674-2_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New Delhi
Print ISBN: 978-81-322-1673-5
Online ISBN: 978-81-322-1674-2
eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)