The DSM-5 Essay

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The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is a widely known handbook that is used as a guide in the health care to diagnosis mental disorders. This book contains various symptoms and descriptions that provide a common language for researchers and clinicians. Around 1850, Emil Kraepelin developed all the DSMs based on the classification system and from then on the first DSM publication has been revised and improved over the past editions (Sue et al., 2017). Many have questioned the preciseness of the revision DSM-5 and its understanding and components that follow the types of mental illnesses. The revision of the DSM-5 (2013) has sparked much controversy debate whether it is a good guide that is efficient, reliable, and credible in terms of diagnostic value. …show more content…

He claims that the first step towards precision medicine, the DSM-5 guide would incorporate genetics, imaging, and data into the new classification system (Bret & Stetka, 2013). NIMH claimed that the DSM-5 has been reliable in many ways by using the same terms in similar ways but lacks validity. It states that the DSM diagnoses are based on the consensus of clinical symptoms rather than objective laboratory measure (Thomas Insel, 2013). One of the main reasons why NIMH will do their research framework studies away from the DSM categories and follow more of their own guidelines is because of the standards of treating mental disorders is no longer sufficient for researchers. Though many are against the use of the DSM-5 due to the lack of reliability and validity, there were also some positive components to the