Psychopathology and the analysis of therapeutic effects

The different domains of psychopathological research are described. An example of taxonomies that may be relevant for therapy is given. For the apathy scale of the AMDP system it is demonstrated that there is an equivalent severity of this syndrome in acute paranoid hallucinatory schizophrenia and in unipolar depression. In schizophrenia the apathy syndrome may subsume some, if not all, of the negative symptoms, that cause major problems for therapy. A common pathophysiological factor for the syndrome in the two diseases is discussed. A systematic psychopathological approach to the identification of pathophysiological factors of drug effects and their involvement in psychiatric diseases, including experimental variables, is characterized.