The diagnostic criteria for anxiety disorders have changed markedly over the past 50 years and continue to evolve. However, Professor Malcolm Lader, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychopharmacology, King's College London, argued in his Keynote Lecture at the Latest Advances in Psychiatry Symposium earlier in the year, that these changes might reflect less conceptual and pathophysiological developments and more perceived treatability. Medical writer, Mark Greener, reports. Copyright © 2008 Wiley Interface Ltd