Essay on Drawbacks and Benefits to Diagnosing Psychological Disorders

To understand what mental illness is you have to know what it means. Mental health is the state of our well-being. Mental health has to do with the mind. According to thefreedictionary.com mental health is “a state of emotional and psychological well-being in which an individual is able to use his or her cognitive and emotional capabilities, function in society, and meet the ordinary demands of everyday life”. Mental illness are behavioral, psychological, and emotional disorders that effect the mind. Mental illness is not something that should be avoided. There many different types of mental illnesses. There are also mental healthcare services that can help people with their mental illnesses.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is currently the most frequently used way of standardizing and defining psychological disorders. However, the classification systems such as DSM have advantages and disadvantages. The major weakness of DSM is that it judges symptoms superficially and ignores other possible important factors. The major strength of DSM is that it enables categorization of psychological disorders.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has a number of features. First of all, every disorder is identified using a name and a numerical code. In addition, the manual provides the criteria for diagnosing each disorder as well as establishes subtypes of a disorder and examples that would illustrate the disorder. The manual goes further by addressing the typical age of onset, culturally related information, gender-related information, prevalence of a disorder, typical clinical course of a disorder, typical predisposing factors of a disorder and genetic family patterns of a disease (Summers, 2009). The DSM-IV is a tool that is used by mental health practitioners and social service workers. As has been demonstrated

I believe mental illnesses are appropriately diagnosed today with the testing facilities that are available. Some

The DSM is used as a standard of reference for psychological diagnosis. The DSM was originally published in 1952 containing only 106 diagnoses; today the revised DSM-IV-TR contains 365 diagnoses. Throughout the history of the DSM, individuals in the mental health profession have relied on it for clarification of disorders, facilitating research, improving communication with other professionals and improving the collection of clinical information. With a new DSM-V underway, there has been a lot of issues surrounding the contents and classifications of the new DSM. There are

The categorisation of mental illness continues today with 2 main publications, the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) created by the World Health Organisation and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) published by American Psychiatric Association. This form of categorisation facilities the process of medical treatment of the patient, by standardising the referral process between medical practioners and the diagnostic labels are primarily used as a, “convenient shorthand” among professionals and not for lay use”.

The controversy and criticism surrounding the DSM -5 models has raised questions about its credibility and has raised concerns from the public on the reliability and effectiveness. Problems with this classification system is the attempt to promote preventive psychiatry by introducing how

The Diagnostic and Statistical manual of mental Disorders also known as the DSM is used was published by the American Psychiatric Association as a way to set standard criteria for diagnosis of the different mental health conditions. Social workers, mental health practitioner and even researchers in order to, use this book to help them diagnose client. The book is intended to be used to make an initial assessment of symptoms that a patient might be facing and after the assessment is done then the clinicians can go about finding interventions to help the client overcome their disorder.

In this paper, I will be interviewing for a psychologist position with a top company. I will be asked about my understanding of the causes and treatment(s) of schizophrenia and I will discuss the following: areas of the brain affected, causal factors, associated symptoms, the neural basis, appropriate drug therapies. I have been given four different case studies of disorders in which I will choose two of them to analyze. I will be discussing my understanding of the problem presented in each of the two case studies from the perspective of a biopsychologist. I will also be including each problem’s relation to the nature-nurture issue and any relevant portions of the Basics to Biopsychology text. I will be applying any

DSM-IV TR, which stands for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th edition), Text Revision was published by the American Psychiatric Association in 2000 and serves as a guide book for many health professionals to diagnose a patient with a mental disorder. It also helps health professionals to determine what types of treatment could be carried out to help the patient. The latest DSM is widely used, especially in the USA and many European countries.1However, it may not be completely followed by health professionals as they know that there are some weaknesses of the latest version of DSM as well. This essay will discuss the strengths and

One of the controversies in development of DSM-5 that is captured in the reading is the expansion of diagnostic disorder that came to be dubbed as diagnostic inflation. The word inflation means there was minimal consideration of the consequences of adding the new disorders. This is clearly captured in the words of Chairperson of DSM-IV, Frances who stated that the introduction of new disorders and changed in the definition of existing disorders may medicalize behavioral problems that may be do not qualify to be classified as such. One example is that of labeling repeated temper tantrums in children as disruptive mood dysregulation. The greatest challenge that mental illness is confronted with is that of stigmatization, hence any behavior that

Mental diagnoses are necessary like any other diagnoses for an illness and similar to other illness the diagnoses can be miss labeled or wrong etc. . . The pros of a mental diagnoses are the understanding of particular set of people with particular symptoms which I prefer to compare to western medicine. Western medicine classifies the flu and strep throat have similar, yet particular systems simpler to PTSD and anxiety. Understanding the two different disorders effects the outcome of the patient and what type of treatment they need. The two cons of diagnosing a person with a mental illness is miss diagnosing and labeling. Miss diagnosing can cause people harm in many ways by the wrong therapy, the wrong medication and you can create more

There are also ethical considerations when diagnosing mental illness. One of these considerations was mentioned above; it is the idea of being stigmatized for having a mental illness. Many people are afraid that once they are given a diagnosis, society will look down on them as being inferior.

What is DSM? The DSM is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders this is an important handbook that is used by and relied on by professionals in the health field. The DSM handbook has classifications of mental disorders along with their symptoms and behaviors. The advantage of professionals having this book, is that this is the manual that is used for mental behaviors and disorders, this is because the World Health Organization wrote so many possible disorders. Another advantage is the DSM can give health professionals a better understanding about a disorder. As for a patient, this can be a sigh of relief because they can finally have an answer as to what is happening to them psychologically

There are times when people are plagued with thoughts, behaviors or emotions that will inhibit them from normal behavior. These are known as psychological disorders. These disorders come in many forms but all will have large effects on a person’s life.