[Diagnosis and treatment of endogenous psychoses (author's transl)]

This article attempts to summarize our knowledge of the diagnosis and treatment of endogenous psychoses from the biological psychopharmacological aspect. Besides the results of pharmacological research which lead to the "amine hypothesis" of endogenous psychoses, results from psychoneuroendocrinology are referred to which show that a laboratory diagnosis of the endogenous depressions is not impossible in the long run. Schizophrenia research findings show that the disease picture of "schizophrenia" can be differentiated into at least two completely different disease entities. Finally the results of studies on the connection between the serum levels and clinical activity of antidepressives and the difficulties of method arising in the studies are reported.