RT Journal
A1 Andreasen NC
T1 PRogress of psychiatric diagnosis
JF Archives of General Psychiatry
JO Archives of General Psychiatry
YR 1979
FD November 1
VO 36
IS 12
SP 1383
OP 1383
DO 10.1001/archpsyc.1979.01780120113016
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.1979.01780120113016
AB To the Editor.— 
    There is perhaps more diversity in the language used to describe "formal thought disorder" than in any other aspect of psychopathology. This diversity is confusing to students and residents, as well as their "superiors," and significantly impairs communication in both clinical work and research. The letter by Michael Taylor and the scale by Endicott and Spitzer1 to which he refers are fine illustrative examples. Endicott and Spitzer, working from a Kraepelinian and Bleulerian tradition, describe five types of formal thought disorder in the Research Diagnostic Criteria: incoherence, loosening of associations, illogical thinking, poverty of content of speech, and neologisms. Taylor, working from the German Phenomenological tradition, proposes such alternatives as paraphasias, drivelling, nonsequitive speech, verbigeration, and tangential speech. Other investigators, such as Harrow and Prozen or Chapman and Chapman, have emphasized bizarre associations or intermingling2 or illusory correlations.3The diversity is due to many factors. One major