The forthcoming revision of the diagnostic and classificatory system: perspectives based on the European psychiatric tradition.

Europe has a rich tradition in psychopathology and psychiatric classification. This could be helpful developing new classification systems like ICD-11 and DSM-V. Some examples of this are described and further discussed, such as the categorical vs. the syndromatological approach, the relevance of hierarchical rules for the delineation of nosological entities, the antagonistic tradition of unitarian vs. splitting approaches and the relevance of a differentiated psychopathological description. Finally, the conclusion is that a too radical change of the classificatory system, e.g. in the direction of a purely symptomatical/dimensional systematic, or a totally new classification based on modern new biological findings, might be problematic and premature.