Chapter 10

Patients who qualify for more than one diagnosis represent the most severely disturbed and least-understood people being treated by mental-health service providers. What do you think are the most important barriers to understanding and serving the needs of these people?

Auditory hallucinations were a prominent part of Angela's symptom profile. Should research on the causes and treatment of mental disorders focus on specific symptoms, such as hallucinations, rather than diagnostic categories (such as schizoaffective disorder)? Or would that effort be similar to trying to study the origins of fever, which is symptomatic of many different kinds of medical illness?