Book Review: The Diagnostic System

While it’s true that many illnesses are foreign to the average person, many of the core symptoms of mental illness are familiar to virtually everyone. “Not only does the public have a reasonable sense about what the symptoms of mental illness feel like, it also has some intuitive grasp about what causes them,” writes Jason Schnittker. In his new book, The Diagnostic System: Why The Classification Of Psychiatric Disorders Is Necessary, Difficult, And Never Settled, Schnittker explores the evolution of the manual we use to understand mental illness – the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Schnittker explores the often confusing and seemingly contradictory processes of defining criteria of mental illnesses, helping readers appreciate that a fluid approach is an adaptive strength of mental health professionals, and one that is necessary to boost our understanding of mental illness. To understand how we develop a framework for understanding mental illness, we must appreciate that the way clinicians, scientists, and the public think about mental illness seek to serve different needs, yet cannot be segregated. “The science of psychiatric disorders, for example, proceeds from how clinicians define disorders. And controversies surrounding how the public understand mental illness have corollaries in debates surrounding how scientists conceptualize mental illness,” writes Schnittker. Yet clinicians themselves rarely agree on diagnoses. Schnittker points to one study where ag...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Book Reviews Disorders Dual Diagnosis General Medications Policy and Advocacy Professional Psychiatry Psychology Psychotherapy Treatment diagnosis system diagnostic system mental diagnosis Mental Disorders Psychiatric Disorde Source Type: news