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Particularly over the last 5 decades, clinical psychology/psychiatry - or better say abnormal psychology - has undergone significant changes (i.e. DSM-I to DSM-IV/V). In fact, these changes are of such fundamental meaning that is seems only appropriate to define the dimensions in which to locate an individual's psychological health.
This paper suggests to make use of the following 5 dimensions: A) Learning ability which refers to an individual's ability to obtain, process, retrieve and apply information (with high learning ability at the one end of the scale and learning difficulties at the other). B) Mental health which is concerned with the balance between an individual's resources and the demands placed upon this individual and the perceived balance (e.g. should demands outstrip resources the mental health of this individual will decrease possibly resulting in depression). C) Personality disorders which are the outcome of an individual's maladaptive behavior (i.e. changes in environment do not motivate an individual to adapt to such changes). D) Brain anomalies whether it should be genetic, acquired through injury and disease or substance abuse (e.g. Korsakoff state). E) Neuron dysfunction whether permanent (e.g. clinical depression) or temporary (e.g. intoxication).
It is claimed within this paper that an individual's psychological health can be mapped within these five dimensions and that this classification system is suitable to replace other systems such as the classification into classical psychoses and neuroses or the 297 disorders in DSM-IV.
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