Inpatient community meeting as an aid to psychiatric diagnosis

There is a growing evidence that the clinical distinction of schizophrenia from mania should be based on a multidimensional approach rather than on the presence of characteristic symptoms. In-patient community group meetings are rarely appreciated as one source of such differential diagnostic data. Some patients are observed to manifest group behaviour which belies the schizophrenic diagnoses with which they re-enter the hospital. Three illustrative cases are presented in which patients so identified were successfully treated with lithium carbonate alone. The clinical and theoretical implications of this phenomenon are discussed.