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THERAPY, broadly defined as the remedial treatment of bodily disorders, can be specifically classified in many ways, depending upon one's prejudices, preconceptions, and increasing understanding of the disease process. Thus we can determine etiological therapy when we have definitively established the cause of a disorder, in contrast to symptomatic therapy, which is designed to alleviate specific discomforts associated with the disorder. This is precisely the situation when isoniazid is used to kill the tubercule bacillus, while codeine is administered to relieve the distressing and disabling cough that accompanies tuberculosis.
Such a significant distinction may be distorted and perverted when etiology is unknown, disputed, or still in the process of being established. This is the case in psychiatry with all but a minute fraction of the organic disorders of the brain. Who today would have the consummate arrogance to assign a specific cause to schizophrenia? Who would presume to claim flatly that schizophrenia is one disease and not a cluster of related disorders?
When we come to that treatment modality called psychotherapy, who is to say what procedure or technique is fully etiological or symptomatic. Webster defines psychotherapy "as a treatment designed or serving to bring about social adjustment." With this definition, we can begin to understand the complexities involved in classifying the variety of therapies, since it not only involves the definition of the causes of a disorder, but also the goals of treatment. This confusion does not usually exist in the physiological disorders since the therapeutic goals are directly related to the causes. In the psychological disorders, the therapeutic goals may