RT Journal A1 McHugh PR T1 Striving for coherence: Psychiatry’s efforts over classification JF JAMA JO JAMA YR 2005 FD May 25 VO 293 IS 20 SP 2526 OP 2528 DO 10.1001/jama.293.20.2526 UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.293.20.2526 AB In the mid-20th century, Freudian psychoanalysts led the discipline by teaching that unconscious mental conflict produced psychiatric disorders. Because psychiatrists then wrapped all disorders into a single explanation (and treated them similarly), they saw little point in sharply distinguishing one manifestation of conflict from another. Although psychoanalytic influence waned in the late 1960s, the diagnostic competence of psychiatrists, needed for progress, did not improve. Even elementary census reports such as the number of patients with schizophrenia who were admitted to mental hospitals were invalid.2