Wakefield Dsm-5 Analysis

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

Debates regarding personality disorders is considered wildly controversial in the field of psychology. I personally think it is because the subject is still being studied and constantly changing. Researchers still have a lack of knowledge regarding personality disorders, and when the DSM-IV came out a lot of people were not thrilled with the classification system and changes. Many proposals were introduced before the DSM-IV was published but, they were never included in the revision. Since professionals weren't positive in the diagnosis and treatments, stating that they had “too many permutations”, they decided to leave the proposals out of the revision. Another big changed presented in the DSM-IV revision was, eliminating four previous personality

Undecided, initially, because of her age the possibility of an inaccurate diagnosis, the differences of both the reliability and validity which may occur because of the difference in age, race, gender as well as socioeconomic status. However, in Clara’s case, it may just be a phase like many toddlers and adolescents go through. On the contrary, it can also be something a little more severe because of the fact that she is adopted,

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).

A picture of hoarding disorder is created through personal interaction and the diagnosis is supported by the DSM V.

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.

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 DSM itself states “diagnosis require clinical judgment (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 19) indicating the fact that two therapist may see things differently. This concept would have to be considered a weakness as consensus is key validity and reliability of diagnosis and subsequent treatment. The article goes on to discuss the idea that the diagnosis of mental illness is more of an art form than a scientific process (Zur & Nordmarken, 2016). Finally, the most harsh factor against the DSM-5 is the outcry by leading professionals. The article points out that the chairman of its predecessor the DSM-4 Dr. Allen Frances was a critic of the DSM-5 from the very beginning. Change on any level is difficult so for Dr. Frances to urge caution is one; however, for him to say “this is the saddest moment in a 45 year career” to the American Psychiatric Association’s approval of the DSM-5 is troubling. Dr. Frances is not alone is his objection to this text. The director of the National Institute of Mental Health; Dr. Thomas Insel joined the opposition stating he will drive his organization’s research away from the DSM-5 (Zur & Nordmarken,

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”

Because there was none, she became the first person to conduct a study on hoarding disorder. The study provided the first hoarding picture and also established that hoarding can run in families. A few years after this research began; two Smith students published the first theoretical account of hoarding that outlines the three dimensions of hoarding: clutter, excessive acquisitions, and difficulty discarding. Continued research about hoarding includes genetics, phenomenology, epidemiology, neuroimaging, and also how hoarding is shown in children and elders. Several Smith College students since 1993 have co- authored scientific papers on hoarding. In 2013, in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM for short, hoarding became an official mental disorder. It was considered a mental health disorder before but only a subtype of OCD. Now, because of the abundance of research that has been done and the studies that show people who display hoarding disorder had no other symptoms of OCD; hoarding has accumulated its own section in DSM.

It is sometimes argued that “the creators of DSM-III and DSM-IV sacrificed validity for the sake of reliability”(Wakefield, 1992, cited in Gray, 2002, p 614). This refers to greater emphasis being placed upon superficial symptoms and less upon underlying symptoms and possible cause which could have an important influence upon individuals (Gray, 2002). Since behavior always involve interaction between the individual and their environment, it can be difficult to assess whether the disorder is within the person or whether it is an environmental influence such as a traumatic experience or related to poverty (Gray, 2002, p.612). This can cause problems when diagnosing is extremely difficult to scientifically distinguish between people’s normal responses or whether it is something more (Gray, 2002).

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.

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.

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

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.