Do Psychiatrists Have a Common Language?

Abstract

Dramatic advances in psychopharmacology, the increased number of psychiatric rehospitalizations, and the advent of automated methods for processing information have all served to make more urgent psychiatry's need for a common language. In order to determine if psychiatry has a current common language, twenty-eight recognized experts from medical centers across the country were questioned regarding what categories, areas, and items of information they felt should be recorded in a mental status examination from one diagnostic interview. Results indicate that a basis for both a traditional and relevant common language in psychiatry does exist when viewed from the perspective of describing a patient's current mental status. Each psychiatrist must strive to overcome a tendency in the profession to develop a unique, elite and often incomprehensible vocabulary.