When someone says they are depressed they generally refer to a sour mood which may be changed quickly with a call from a friend or a gift or by simply seeing a good movie. But clinical depression is something quite a bit more profound. Similarly, some people may find themselves nervous before a test or anxious about a romantic situation. But that is different from an anxiety disorder where repetitive behavior ensues whenever a particular situation is encountered. While it is not always easy to tell the difference between serious disorders involving anxiety or depression and the usual fare, it is also easy to confuse these diagnoses with one another. The confusion in terms of recognition is true not only for the layman but for the professional as well.
            
             Presently, the most authoritative reference for diagnostic guidelines in psychiatry is the manual put out by the American Psychiatric Association's (1994) and commonly referred to as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th ed. (DSM-IV) (Dreary, Peter, Austin & Gibson, 1998). Conditions such as schizophrenia, depression and anxiety disorders are diagnosed on Axis I of the five axes used in the manual (1998). Personality disorders are however diagnosed on Axis II and the implication is that the personality disorders express their effects continuously from late adolescence onward but do not relapse and remit like typical illness syndromes (1998). Clearly, diagnosing and treating conditions of the mind are specific enough to classify. Thus, when experts call disorders one thing or another, they are considered to manifest in a particular way.
            
             Yet, one can take the DSM-IV and suggest that some classification is redundant. For example, in the case of anxiety and depression, one could arguably say they are one in the same. Is there enough specifications for each condition that one can clearly tell them apart in the clinical context? After all, when criteria are created they are done so with...