Essay On Dsm-5

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

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

Select one mental health disorder of your choice based on a valid diagnostic category in the DSM-5.

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).

This diversity in the professions that contribute to the criteria found in the DSM-5 can only assist in assuring the validity of the disorders presented within it. The disorders contained in the manual all have a series of specific requirements that an individual must

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.

While reviewing the article Diagnosing for Status and Money, Summary of the Critique of the DSM, a few things seemed to jump off the page. The DSM-5 while a well written and no longer intimidating to me appears to have a slant towards managed care organizations vice actual counselors. Having a manual that provides simplistic codes universally used between doctors that treat physical ailments and those who treat psychological ailments is critical; however, the focus must always be the patient. The text contains subjective qualifiers which provides the counselor the ability to use multiple diagnosis, either over diagnosing or underdiagnosing. The DSM-5 appears to provide care from a medication management prospective over psychotherapy

From time to time we all have periods of sadness, unhappy thoughts. Among the United States population, around eight to ten percent suffer from a form of depression as unipolar depression. Depressive and bipolar disorders show to be a principal cause of disability, without cure a person can have a tough experience with relationships, work, and social activities. Substance abuse disorders are becoming an rampant. The need for instant indulgence has become more and more widespread in the world. The DSM-5 shows the symptoms checklist for diagnosis of substance abuse disorder (see table 1.3 in appendix a), and according to Comer, (2014) “the substances people misuse fall into several categories: depressants, stimulants, hallucinogens, and cannabis”

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.

Although Gender Identity Disorder (GID) and homosexuality has been in the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) for many years, I was personally unaware of the controversy that surrounded it. I realized that I needed to educate myself in the issues and changes that have occurred in the DSM regarding GID and homosexuality over the years.

Being able to form a diagnosis properly for a client is a process that is wide-ranging and broad. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013) supports recommendations and standards for identifying a diagnosis for a client. The procedure of diagnosing is more than skimming for symptoms in the DSM; one must assess, interview and identify issues, as well as refer to the DSM for a diagnosis.

Before answering the question we need to understand what DSM-5 is it is shortened from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Of mental Disorders and the five shows how much it has changed over the years. This classification wouldn’t be possible without Emil Krapelin who developed the first modern classification system for abnormal behavior which helped form the first DSM. The DSM-5 list approximately 400 mental disorders each one explains the criteria for diagnosing the disorder and key clinical features and sometimes describes features that are often times not related to the disorder. The classification is further explained by the back ground information such as: research finds, age, culture, gender trends, and each disorder’s prevalence, risk, course, complications predisposing factors, and family patterns. The DSM-5 is the only one of the editions that seeks both categorical and dimensional information as part of the diagnosis, rather than categorical information alone (Comer, 2013, pp.100). Now that we know what DSM-5 is we need to know what categorical information and dimensional information mean. Categorical information refers to the name of the disorder indicated by the patient’s symptoms. An example of this would be when a clinician must decide if a patient is showing

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

DSM IV TR was published in the year 2000, it was a text revision of previous version DSM IV. Majority of the specific areas under diagnosis remain unchanged. Some extra information were added on diagnosis. The DSM IV TR was organised into five part axial system. The first axis contains clinical disorders,second axis contains intellectual disabilities and personality disorders. The remaining axis covered social, environmental factors etc. Through out the history of the DSM , it’s authors have debated a number of complex issues, including the theoretical basis of the classification system. Each edition of the manual has represented thousands of hours of discussion among experts in several related

The individual has to meet the criteria and their symptoms must be persistent over a six months including two or more of either delusion, hallucinations, disorganised speech, grossly disorganised and negative symptoms; before they can be labelled as having a psychological disorder. Symptoms must be present for diagnosis to be established. Myers (2014, p630) explains that physicians and mental health workers use the “DSM-5 to guide medical diagnosis and define treatments”. The DSM classification has been changed over a few years, some of the disorders that has been removed from the 4th edition and some added to the 5th edition, disorders such as “Autism and Asperger’s syndrome” as seen in Myers (2014) is not included but has been combined into “ Autism spectrum disorder” Myers (2014,