2013 sees the centenary of Jaspers' foundation of psychopathology as a science in its own right.
In 1913 Karl Jaspers published his psychiatric opus magnum - the
Allgemeine Psychopathologie (General Psychopathology). Jaspers was working at a time much like our own - with rapid expansion in the neurosciences, and responding to the philosophical challenges that this raised. The idea inspiring his book was very simple: to bring order into the chaos of abnormal psychic phenomena by rigorous description, definition and classification, and to empower psychiatry with a valid and reliable method to assess and make sense of abnormal human subjectivity.
After almost one century, many of the concepts challenged by Jaspers are still at issue, and Jaspers' investigation is even now the ground for analyses and discussions. With a new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) imminent, many of the issues concerning methodology and diagnosis are still the subject of much discussion and debate. This volume brings together leading psychiatrists and philosophers to discuss and evaluate the impact of this volume, its relevance today, and the legacy it left.
