[AMDP system and psychopathology (author's transl)].

The psychopathological scale of AMDP system is voluntary limited to descriptive aspects of psychopathology. If the term psychopathology could be considered identical to psychiatric semiology, the words signs and symptoms go above the descriptive stade: the greek name sumptôma contains sun (with) and piptein (appear), while the word sign is an intellectual deduction of observed symptoms. In the AMDP-3, the sense of evaluated symptoms results from the configurational approach, for example a factor analysis. The splitting of german psychopathological concepts in items and the evaluation of these items in relation to observable compounds bind to their configurational structure will, no doubt, permit to avoid the obstacle of a different conceptualisation of the same symptoms from one school to the other. Furthermore, the AMDP-3 scale and its manual constitute a remarkable teaching instrument for psychopathology, not always enough appreciated.