In the research on and reactions towards ambiguity and uncertainty in medicine, certain types of obstacles have been identified in the learning-teaching process and in research in psychopathology. Examples include the confusing concepts and problems related to mis-translated psychopathological terms. The symptoms of desegregation and inconsistency during thought have been defined and conceptualized virtually as synonyms, due to a distortion in the understanding of Bleuler’s original expression “Inkohärenz.” The advances in psychopathological research, teaching and clinical practice depend on the conceptual clarity and accuracy in the nomenclature of descriptive psychopathology. The concepts and definitions of the changes in the course or form of thinking in all the editions of Kaplan and Sadock, as well as terms in other textbooks, are taken up here. Andreasen’s and Weinberger’s points of view are also compared in this theme in psychiatric semiology.
Psychopathology; research (course and way thinking); inconsistency; disaggregation