Comparing Genes and Phenomenology in the Major Psychoses: Schizophrenia and Bipolar 1 Disorder

For the last several decades, diagnosis in psychiatry has been rule based, related to phenomenology and standard-ized. It has given psychiatry an unearned advantage in communicating about its illnesses, unearned because the molecular basis for this standardization has remained elusive. However, it has provided a language for success-ful communication about psychiatric syndromes and supported practical functions for which categorization is helpful; functions as disparate as insurance reimburse-ment and drug development have been enabled with this language. Moreover, this standardization has had addi-tional practical advantages beyond communication and labeling, specifically in terms of public familiarity. Further, these standardized categories have been pos-tulated without any real knowledge about the biological