The Problem with the DSM

Currently, diagnosis in mental disorders is based on clinical observation and patients’ phenomenological symptom reports. This system, implemented with the innovative Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-III (DSM-III) in 1980 and refined in the current DSM-IV-TR (Text Revision), has served well to improve diagnostic reliability in both clinical practice and research. The diagnostic categories represented in the DSM-IV and the International Classification of Diseases-10 (ICD-10, containing virtually identical disorder codes) remain the contemporary consensus standard for how mental disorders are diagnosed and treated, and are formally implemented in insurance billing, FDA requirements for drug trials, and many other institutional usages. By default, current diagnoses have also become the predominant standard for reviewing and awarding research grants. However, in antedating contemporary neuroscience research, the current diagnostic system is not informed by recent breakthroughs in genetics; and molecular, cellular and systems neuroscience. Indeed, it would have been surprising if the clusters of complex behaviors identified clinically were to map on a one-to-one basis onto specific genes or neurobiological systems. As it turns out, most genetic findings and neural circuit maps appear either to link to many different currently recognized syndromes or to distinct subgroups within syndromes. If we assume that the clinical syndromes based on subjective symptoms are unique and unitary disorders, we undercut the power of biology to identify illnesses linked to pathophysiology and we limit the development of more specific treatments. Imagine treating all chest pain as a single syndrome without the advantage of EKG, imaging, and plasma enzymes. In the diagnosis of mental disorders when all we had were subjective complaints (cf. chest pain), a diagnostic system limited to clinical presentation could confer reliability and consistency but not validity. To date, there has been general consensus that the science is not yet well enough developed to permit neuroscience-based classification. However, at some point, it is necessary to instantiate such approaches if the field is ever to reach the point where advances in genomics, pathophysiology, and behavioral science can inform diagnosis in a meaningful way. RDoC represents the beginning of such a long-term project.

Notes:

By clustering symptoms into categories of mental illness, we are treating symptoms, not underlying causes.

Folksonomies: psychology diagnosis mental disorders

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Concepts:
Psychology (0.988951): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (0.907650): website | dbpedia | freebase
Mental disorder (0.807927): dbpedia | freebase
Diagnosis (0.739710): dbpedia
Neuroscience (0.716403): dbpedia | freebase
Classification of mental disorders (0.680044): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Psychiatry (0.655145): website | dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Schizophrenia (0.621484): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc

 NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC)
Electronic/World Wide Web>Internet Article:  NIMH, (June, 2011), NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC), NIMH, Retrieved on 2013-05-07
  • Source Material [www.nimh.nih.gov]
  • Folksonomies: psychology diagnosis mental disorders


    Triples

    07 FEB 2014

     DSM vs RDoC

    Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) > Similarity > The Problem with the DSM
    Two passages from different sources on the switch.
    Folksonomies: dsm rdoc
    Folksonomies: dsm rdoc