The Dsm Diagnostic Process Can Be Broken Down Into Six Essential Steps

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

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 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 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.

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

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.

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.

symptoms of delusions (Frank, 1998). According to Foster and Levinson (1998) this client has a

Of them, a prominent one would be the Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS), a test deftly structured to perceive the possibility of malingering. Interviewees are asked a series of questions regarding their supposed symptoms and their responses are then contrasted to the answers gained from actual patients and also individuals who were knowingly malingering. To gauge their truthfulness, SIRS makes mention of a broad array of symptoms that may not be factual for even an extraordinarily abnormal cohort; furthermore, individuals are inquired numerous times questions pertaining to a certain symptoms, to check their constancy. According to Kucharski (2014), there are several clinical indicators that could signal off the potential prevalence of malingering, of them would be, symptoms inconsistent with distress, craving an unnatural amount of attention to one’s symptoms, atypical display of symptoms and odd combinations thereof, indistinct presence of symptoms, lack of symptoms that may be hard to feign and an overall discrepancy in symptoms reported and conduct observed

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

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

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”

Applying a diagnosis to a client’s profile has complications as well. The labeling of a client with a diagnosis related to mental illness can have negative effects on his or her self esteem and also result in insurance and employment issues (Mears, 2010). Without careful attention to issues of culture and social justice in a person’s life, responses to oppression can be improperly diagnosed (Mears, 2010). A woman who is diagnosed with an anxiety disorder without exploration into the fact that she is being sexually harassed at work would be an example of this issue.

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