[Differential diagnosis of anxiety with ICD 10]

The principles of operational psychiatric diagnostic systems like DSM-III-R, DSM-IV and ACD-10 are shown at the beginning of the paper. On this background, the classification of the anxiety disorders in ICD-10 and the most important diagnostic guidelines and criteria are explained. The "diagnostic criteria for research" study in Germany in the field of psychosomatics and psychotherapy has shown good interrater reliability which is an important characteristic of the quality of the diagnosis. At last, essential shortcomings of ICD-10 from the perspective of psychosomatics/psychotherapy are discussed. For example, the disease conceptualization and the low treatment validity are missing because important diagnostic characteristics like personality structure, the specific conflicts of the patient, characteristics of learning and the coping mechanism are missing in ICD-10 and DSM.