The evolution of psychiatry as the disappearance of cysts (Response to the article by V.D. Mendelevich “Semantic void” of a number of psychiatric terms used in the diagnosis of schizophrenia)

Current diagnosis in psychiatry is primarily based on formalised criteria used in diagnostic classifiers — ICD and DSM. Diagnostic classifiers, as well as related professional terminology, change periodically. The updating of the medical (including psychiatric) lexicon is driven both by the accumulation of new scientific data and by increasing ethical requirements that do not allow the use of stigmatising terms. V.D. Mendelevich in his article, the commentary of which is the present publication, justifiably questions the appropriateness of the traditional use of archaic and meaningless terms from psychiatry of the rather distant past in the diagnosis of schizophrenia. According to the author of this comment, the diagnostic approaches criticised by V.D. Mendelevich are not only irrational, but also ethically unacceptable.