Oxford Text pg 262-268

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)

classification system for abnormality

DSM-I

1952-1974 edition of DSM grounded in psychoanalysis (homosexuality is a mental disorder)

DSM-II

edition published in 1968 - criticized psychiatric practices and use of unobservable constructs but retained psychoanalysis roots

DSM-III

edition published 1980 - used the multi-axial system, shifted from explaining disorders to describing them (abandons psychoanalysis)

DSM-IV

published 1994 - added clinical significance criterion, each diagnosis was described in terms of five dimensions (axes)

clinical significance criterion

to be diagnosed with a disorder an individual had to exhibit symptoms that created clinically significant distress or impairment of daily functioning

international classification of diseases (ICD)

classification system for all diseases, including medical

chinese classification of mental disorders (ccmd)

similar to DSM and ICD, but better suited to Chinese culture

explanation description

a challenge faced by the DSM: Dsm moves towards less ___________ and more _______ to make diagnoses more consistent between clinicians

reliability validity

a challenge faced by the DSM: having diagnoses be more consistent means higher _________ but the diagnosis might become less accurate meaning lower ___________

deliniation

a challenge faced by the DSM: the symptoms by which disorders are diagnoses overlap so finding a behavior’s category is not easy

changing social norms

a challenge faced by the DSM: behaviours, such as homosexuality, become normalized

degrees of abnormality

a challenge faced by the DSM: establishing the severity of a symptom is more difficult than simply establishing its presence

cross-cultural applicability

a challenge faced by the DSM: should be equally applicable to people of different cultural backgrounds

medicalization

a challenge faced by the DSM: how categories of mental illnesses are defined have a direct influence on the percentage of a population that can be categorized as mentally ill

point prevalence rate

the proportion of people in the population currently diagnosed with the disorder

period prevelance

the proportion of a population that has the disorder at the same point in time during a given period

onset age

the average age when individuals in a given population first develop the disorder

classification system

diagnoses are made of the basis of a list of symptoms and diagnostic criteria

clinical bias in diagnosis

there are biases surrounding how consistently a classification system is applied across psychiatrists and across populations

Furnham and Malik (1994)

a study which attempted to explain why British Asians were rarely diagnoses with depression

expression of symptoms

symptoms are expressed differently due to cultural, gender, and age variation

Payne (2012)

study that demonstrated that African-American and Caucasian clients often express their symptoms differently