title: Psychosis and schizophrenia: effects of changes in psychiatric classifications on clinical and theoretical approaches to mental illness.
abstract: This article discusses changes in the diagnostic classification systems for mental illness, especially the conceptual weakening of the "psychosis" category while schizophrenia became the only psychosis. Current pathological classifications prioritize a physicalist approach. Consequently, conditions that previously were associated with neurosis and subjectivity are being medicalized, conditions previously recognized as psychotic are relocated under the heading of personality disorders, and psychosis has been reduced to schizophrenia and considered a deficit of psychic functions. This article indicates the clinical and operational validity of the notion of "psychosis" as a nosographic category permitting a more complex approach to "schizophrenia", which in psychiatry is the last concept that bears the symbolic weight of madness.
authors.affiliation: Professor, Departamento de Psicologia/Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro. Rua Marquês de São Vicente, 225, sala 201-L. 22451-900 - Rio de Janeiro - RJ - Brasil. fernandotenorio@terra.com.br.
authors.forename: Fernando
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Tenório
mesh_terms: D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000145:classification / Q000266:history*; D011572:Psychoanalysis / Q000266:history; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000145:classification / Q000266:history*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000145:classification / Q000266:history*