From a biographical analysis of approximately 500 case records of patients with various kinds of mental state (in particular mood, anxiety and schizophrenic) disorders, a typology of premorbid personality variants was derived. It comprises three "affective types" dominating in patients with major affective disorders and three "neurotoid types" prevailing in other, above all anxiety and schizophrenic, disorders. These types were operationalized so that they could be assessed by means of a diagnostically "blind" rating of biographical case reports or of interview protocols concerning the premorbid development of clinically remitted patients.