Guest editorial: classification in child psychiatry.

49 As far back as 1959, Wooten warned about the dangers of “premature hardening of the categories” referring to how, inevitably, refinements of classification become incorporated into social practice with disproportionate speed, surpassing the careful data collection and hypothesis testing still necessary to validate categories. Sound familiar? And these were the pre-internet days! As I researched the history of classification I came across a wonderful two volume collection on “Issues of Classification of Children: A Sourcebook on Categories, Labels and their Consequences” by Nicholas Hobbs dating back to 1976. It was a thoughtful discussion about classifying and its effects, penned by psychiatrists, educators, parents and yes, even children, the often passive recipients of our musings. It was after the appearance of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuals I and II (DSM-I and II) and the “DSM approach” was one of many models competing for the attention of child and youth clinicians and researchers in search of a more satisfying and practical approach to classification. The Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP) child