Conclusions

In the Introduction, we frankly stated that each chapter in this book would focus on a singular symptom. This is easier said than done. The complexity of psychiatric symptoms, the dangers of oversimplification, the often synergistic and even reciprocal relationships among symptoms, and the limitations of the constructs available to fully comprehend human behavior all complicate the goal of treating psychiatric symptoms as unique symptom entities. Indeed, patients live their lives in an integrated, not discrete, symptom-driven fashion. These challenges are not a result of clarifying psychiatric symptoms. These are the inherent challenges of psychiatry—of attempting to describe and clinically classify pathologic human behavior. Defining and differentiating psychiatric symptoms illuminates this challenge and is a necessary step in improving our ability to understand our patients.