Fun Paper #3
1)“Psychologist use classification systems to diagnose mental disorders. But these systems have also come under criticism. The most popular classification system is the DSM-4.” 1a) DSMV-4 defined as “American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (fourth edition) published in 2004.” There are 230 disorders grouped into17 categories including: anxiety disorder, dissociative disorder, mood disorders, schizophrenic disorders, and personality disorders, which are described in DSMV-4. In the manual, disorders and its symptoms are defined in a structured interview technique so that clinicians can use them to reach a diagnosis. They answer objective questions, posted at five different levels, or axis, about the individual’s observable behaviors. There are five categories described in DSM-4-TR: axis1- which ask the question “Is a clinical syndrome present?”, axis2-asks “Is a personality disorder or mental retardation present?”, axis3- asks “Is a general medical condition, such as diabetes, hypertension, or arthritis, also present?”, axis4-asks “Are psychosocial or environmental problems, such as school or housing issue, also present?”, and asis5-asks “What is the global assessment of this person’s functioning.?”
1b) As diagnosis processes and disorders were structurally categorized in DSM-4, clinician, psychiatrist, and psychologist benefit from that. One advantage is that by knowing the name of the disorder a patient exhibits, another psychiatrist or psychologist can give the same treatment to the patient independently. Moreover as the manual is very structured and reliable, another psychologist can give the consistent diagnosis to the same patient by reading the manual or viewing the video tape of each interview which was done by the previous psychologist. These second opinions and treatments are correct and successful for most of the patients. A study shows 16 doctors diagnosed the same patient and...