The development of a 45-item scale is reported that will measure ego function in such a way as to allow clinicians to correlate the given state of a person's functioning with somatic function indices. It is our hope that the development of such an instrument will allow more meaningful understanding of clinical states than do such concepts as diagnosis and symptom clusters, especially with regard to the schizophrenias as observed during states of regression and return to optimal functioning.

Others have been interested in this type of approach and their work demonstrates how much more advanced the somatic function indices are than those of psychological function. This scale is to be considered primarily a clinical one, not too complicated, admittedly imperfect, but designed to stimulate further thinking and investigation.