title: [How should emotional crises be diagnosed?].
abstract: Psychic crises alter the personal identity as a whole in the sense of a global loss of relations and orientations. Thus they represent problems of personal values, which cannot sufficiently be described in terms of criteria and behavior orientated diagnostic systems, which believe according to the philosophy of logical empiricism, that psychiatric and psychotherapeutic diagnoses can be conceived as genus and logical classes. As alternatives we discuss two other approaches: the prototype theory and the ideal type theory. The more attractive one of the two approaches seems to be Max Weber's theory of act, not only for it's acceptance in contemporary social sciences, but also because it enables the integration of qualitative and quantitative empirical research, aspects of subjectivity and personal identity, and--last not least--socio-cultural aspects. As a result of these methodological considerations the author developed the research paradigm of qualitative diagnostic research. The application of this approach to psychic crises will be discussed at the end of the article.
authors.affiliation: Klinisches Institut, Heinrich Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Frommer
mesh_terms: D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D003419:Crisis Intervention; D006801:Humans; D007063:Identity Crisis; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011613:Psychotherapy
vernacular_title: Wie sollen wir seelische Krisen diagnostizieren?