Intelligent Clinician's Guide To The Dsm-5 Essay

The DSM IV-TR, published by the American Psychiatric Association, is the authoritative book for clinicians, psychiatrists, therapists and other healthcare professionals who diagnose mental disorders. It lists the diagnostic criteria and features, differential diagnoses, course and prevalence of the disease. It is the go-t

Top researchers and clinicians from around the world to be members of our DSM-5 Task Force, Work Groups and Study Groups. These are experts in neuroscience, biology, genetics, statistics, epidemiology, social and behavioral sciences, nosology, and public health. These members participate on a strictly voluntary basis and encompass several medical and mental health disciplines including psychiatry, psychology, pediatrics, nursing and social work. (“Who was involved,” para. 6)

The strengths when working with clients on a medical model perspective is that the use of the DSM provides a common language to use in the medical community. The DSM provides reliability and structural guideline to each mental disorder. The structural guidelines in the DSM provide an organized list of criteria and specifiers to help determine the severity of the mental disorder. When diagnosing a client, there are many similar signs and symptoms to each mental disorder; thus, the DSM provides the clinician information about differential diagnosis, prevalence, possible co-morbidity, age of onset, and progressive development of symptoms. Hence, focusing on the medical model and using the DSM can be beneficial to both the client and the clinician providing treatment.

While reading over the introduction to the DSM-5 I was impressed. I have never looked at any DSM or really any mental health disorders thus far in my studies. I was mostly impressed with the strive to continue making the DSM more useful and understanding. Some things that are in the introduction to the DSM-5 that caught my attention was that the Task Force was very involved in trying to find a balance between the different disorders without confusing them together (p. 5). Another point that I found important was that the overall goal for the DSM-5 was “the degree to which two clinicians could independently arrive at the same diagnosis for a given patient” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 7). This is a strong reasoning to improve the DSM and I am actually stocked that it took this long to change things because Robert Spritzer (a psychiatrist of the twentieth century who became have a strong part in developing the DSM-III and the DSM-IIIR), back in 1974 noticed the central issue being the problem of diagnosis and psychiatrists not being able to agree on the same disorders (Spiegel, 2005).

The DSM is a classified system used by psychiatrist and other clinical professions in order to diagnose clients and patients who show signs of some type of disorder. The two advantages of using this model or classification system ranges from the validity of an assessment used by clinicians and other health care professionals. Build around the concepts and purposes for the DSM model is that it supports a number of standard assessments of diagnosing different treatment providers. Furthermore, (Comer, J. 2016) suggest that the DSM-5 requires clinicians to provide both categorical and dimensional information which is part of being consistent in diagnosing. From a categorical perspective this refers to the name of a particular category of a disorder which is indicated on behalf of the client’s symptoms. From the dimensional perspective it is a rating of how the client symptoms and the severity of the dysfunction through various dimensions.

Furthermore, Gonvalves, Dantas, and Banzato research that DSM-5 derived harsh criticism and considered secretive by serval authors (p.1). Additionally, they also established authors in the philosophy of psychiatry who underline the importance of values in psychiatric diagnosis, research, treatments, and classification within the manual (p. 2). Actually, Goncalves and colleagues (2016) detected a proposal which was termed Psychosis Risk Syndrome (PRS). Before the DSM-5 was prepared, the Psychotic Disorders Work Group created the PRS proposal as a placeholder for the high-risk disorders (Goncalves, Dantas, & Banzato, 2016, p.2). Yet, the PRS was criticized as premature and confusing

The overall message and core argument this book offers is that the new version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-5, will cause an enormous increase of people who are not mentally ill being diagnosed with a mental disorder and receiving unnecessary treatment for it. Allen Frances argues that assigning everyday problems to mental disorders causes massive disadvantages for individuals and society. Diagnosing a healthy person as mentally ill will lead to unnecessary, harmful medications, the constricting of horizons, misallocation of medical recourses, and wasting the budgets of families and the state. He states as well that we do not take responsibility for our own mental well-being. We do not trust our

Allen Frances was on the task force that led to the development of the DSM-IV, served as the Department Chair of Psychiatry at the University of Duke, and a notary author of numerous books and research. His experiences and education allowed him to observe and draw a conclusion that society was creating an inflation of mental health disorders that could be evaluated as normal. After his early retirement, he decided to write about those experiences, in a book called, Saving normal: An insider 's revolt against out-of-control psychiatric diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the medicalization of ordinary life, and bring awareness to the Diagnostic Statistical Manuel’s (2015) inflation of mental health disorders. The book focuses on the history of mental health and Frances’s perspective on what is normal and abnormal mental health disorders.

Ever since my later adolescence years, I have always been intrigued by the diverse complexity of the human brain. Numerous days I have sat down obtrusively observing my surroundings just to satisfy my curiosity on how individuals think, reason and problem solve everyday life happenings. As such, when it was time to attend university, I decided to study psychology as a means of gaining knowledge and understanding about individuals’ cognitive processes and their behavior. During my undergraduate studies, for a particular reason, I was struck by Abnormal Psychology and spent hours thinking about the various disorders captured by the then Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM IV). I spent an awful lot of time trying to understand the differing disorders and how their impact on the behavior and thinking processes of individuals that are diagnosed with them.

The diagnostic process for personality disorders currently covers a broad scope of various tests and symptoms, causing a source of frustration for psychiatrists (Aldhous). The symptoms and side effects of several personality disorders can tend to blur together, making diagnosis challenging (Aldhous). Most psychiatric patients are diagnosed with several personality disorders at once, with twenty percent of people with personality disorders simply diagnosed with a “personality disorder not otherwise specified” (Aldhous). Using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders, commonly referred to as the DSM, psychiatrists attempt with great difficulty to categorize their patients into a specific disorder, only to diagnose

The DSM has a lot of information pertaining to different and similar disorders. The DSM includes diagnostic criteria for mental disorders. The DSM has set criteria defined by experts for clinicians to make a diagnosis. The purpose of revising the DSM-5 was to improve diagnoses, treatment, and research. I am very impressed with the DSM-5. There are some conditions in the manual that I would have never thought were possible. However, they still have criteria and z codes to meet that diagnosis. Also, I am impressed that there are so many subtypes of disorders. For example, there are so many types of neurocognitive disorders listed in the DSM. A few of the neurocognitive disorders listed include NCD due to traumatic brain injury, HIV infection, Huntington's disease, another medical condition, and unspecified neurocognitive disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

Allen Frances criticizes the widespread of diagnosing and medicating normal people in his book, “Saving Normal”. Frances has written a clear and detailed discussion about the apparent explosion of psychiatric disorders in the United States. The first three chapters demonstrate the intimate knowledge Frances has regarding the process and thoughts behind making a new diagnosis and the intention of pharmaceutical companies. It was important to learn about the history of creating the DSM and the history of the changes doctors have made to assist those with mental health problems.

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

Personality disorders are very defined and recognized in today’s society. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) published by the American Psychiatric Association provides common language and standards classifying mental disorders. The DSM is used by many people in varying disciplines in the USA as well as many other countries. In times past, people with disorders may have been outcast from a community or even persecuted. However, in our current culture the pendulum has swung in the other direction. It almost seems that there is a trend to explain all behavior by a mental disorder. This results in needing to disprove that certain people are not displaying a disorder, rather acting within a normal human emotion or

The structural reorganization of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5) has caused it to become highly controversial and heavily criticized (Neimeyer, 2014). The structural reorganization focuses on a more theoretical based practice rather than an evidenced based practice. Utilization of an evidenced based practice has been the norm for nearly 20 years, leaving practitioners and clinicians critical about the recent changes. Transforming into a more theoretical way of thinking is reminiscent of the ideological approach of diagnosing and treating patients in the DSM 1 and 2. DSM-5 is attempting to align itself with International Classification of Disease (ICD). This is a substantial change towards a more ideological way of diagnosis and treating patients. In an effort to become