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Kurt Nussbaum, MD
207 Clarendon Ave Pikesville, MD 21208

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1987;44(1):94.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

Drs Bond and Vaillant¹ compared patients' defense styles with their diagnoses on axes I, II, and IV of DSM-III² and came to the conclusion that DSM-III diagnosis could not predict defense style. This finding led them to suggest that diagnosis and defense style are two independent dimensions. They suggest introducing a sixth axis for psychodynamic formulation and therapeutic planning.

Actually, the lack of correlation between axes I and II of DSM-III comes as no surprise, since DSM-III was formulated explicitly on a descriptive basis with elimination of psychodynamics.

In DSM-II,³ there was no doubt that personality disorders belonged in toto to the medical model in psychiatry. In DSM-III,² personality disorders are to be coded under nonmedical axis II with the proviso that personality traits, although not coded, may also be listed in axis II. Thus arises a confusion between personality traits, which are . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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