Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
Diagnosing the DSM
Diagnostic Classification Needs Fundamental ReformIf all goes as planned, the American Psychiatric Association will release a new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) in May 2013. But, argues Dr. Steven Hyman, the DSM is a poor mirror of clinical and biological realities; a fundamentally new approach to diagnostic classification is needed as researchers uncover novel ways to study and understand mental illness.
Updating the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
How the foremost clinical manual for psychiatric disorders guides doctors to diagnoses has long been controversial. Now, during the early stages of the manual’s revision, complementary articles—one by four scientists involved in the process, the other by a psychiatrist looking in from the outside—address how to make psychiatric diagnosis both more certain and more flexible.