Diagnosis and the DSM : a critical review

Vanheule, Stijn 1974- (Author).

Summary: This book critically evaluates the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Through analysis of the history of psychiatric diagnosis and of the handbook itself, it argues that the DSM-5 has a narrow biomedical approach to mental disorders, and proposes a new contextualizing model of mental health symptoms.

Record details

ISBN: 9781137404671 (hardcover)
Physical Description: print
xii, 103 p. ; 23 cm.
Publisher: Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK : Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

1. Dynamics of Decision-Making in the DSM: The Issue of Reliability -- From prototype to checklist: a brief history -- Commotion in psychiatry, part I: diagnosis under fire in the 1970s -- Commotion in psychiatry, part II: critical researchers dethrone the psychiatric ethos -- Commotion in psychiatry, part III: deinstitutionalization, rationalization, medicalization, and fuzzy decision-making -- Neo-Kraepelinian restoration -- Diagnostic reliability since the DSM-III -- Conclusion -- 2. Context and Diagnosis in the DSM: The Issue of Validity -- How the DSM takes into account context -- paradox of polythetic descriptive diagnosis -- Sign-based diagnosis -- Beyond sign-based diagnosis: symptoms as personal constructions -- Intermezzo: Lacan's position -- search for biomedical referents -- mental disorder: what kind of kind? -- Conclusion.