Current psychopathology is not able to take sufficiently into account the personal aspects of the mental problems that can be discovered in the mind of the patient. This poses a problem to psychiatric treatment in general. In this article it is claimed that this problem can be partly resolved by separating the perspective of the patient and that of the psychopathologist. Consequently, clinical observations have to be ordered in a different manner; this would have far reaching consequences for many psychopathological rating scales.