A diagnostic axis relevant to psychotherapy and preventive mental health.

Concepts commonly useful to therapists in deciding upon the direction of psychotherapy are collated into a diagnostic axis, using the language of skills. It is argued that this skills axis has more therapeutic relevance than a symptom-cluster scheme, is less pejorative than personality disorder labels, lends itself to scientific grounding, would promote clarity in outcome research, and could be usefully applied to preventive mental health.