Summary Of The Diagnostic And Statistical Manual

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The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual or the DSM is a manual that outlines the mental disorders that are plaguing individuals within the era. The DSM is produced and published by the American Psychiatric Association and is used by mental health practitioners and psychiatrist as the official handbook of mental disorders. The DSM provides a list of deviant behaviors displayed within periods of time and a committee within the American Psychiatric Association, which decide what is mentally ill, these determinations control the view of whom will be considered mentally ill and receive a diagnosis. Although the DSM is vital in creating a common language within the mental health community it categorizes many disorders together which may have some drawbacks. …show more content…

(Wing, 2011) The DSM in the case of diagnosing children and adolescents is determining whether its hyperactive behavior, therefore strict guidelines must be put in place to in order to not confuse the two, but differentiating the two is where we run into implications. In the article Anxiety and Anxiety Disorders in children and adolescents: Developmental issue and implications for DSM V, deals with such obstacles talking about patterns and an in-depth look of anxiety and its effect on the brain, and relating back to scientific results to determine severity. These types of studies are ideal way to determine what goes into the DSM taking a boarder look. (Beesdo,2009) Unfortunately, since mental health is part of the psy-ences and there is no concrete determination of what is clinically insane and what is normal, the DSM will never be a substantial form of diagnose and the increase and decrease of categories is inconsequential. Although it is a step forward in the way of identifying and diagnosing disorders. It is a helpful tool in the world of mental health and medicine as a whole but it can’t be the only source when diagnosing disorders. Considering the DSM is written a select committee of like-minded individuals, scrutinized due to its bias nature. Also, there is much similarity within the diagnosis themselves aside from the symptoms, even though the DSM contains laid language for non-scientists to know what is there is still much stigma in a diagnosis because it gives people an exaggerated belief of understanding the complex nature of a diagnosis of something like schizophrenia for

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