The symptoms of mental disorders form complexes indicated as syndromes. Syndromology is part of the diagnostic process in psychiatry, which should end with a nosological diagnosis. But the 10th revision of the International Classification of Diseases classifies dependence as a dependence syndrome, a terminology neither satisfactory nor appropriate because dependence is a complex and chronic psychosomatic disorder whose characterization as a syndrome is a step backwards or a fall to a lower diagnostic level.

Key words: psychopathology – syndrome – dependence syndrome – syndromology – dependence