DSM-5 and Research Concerning Mental Illness

Abstract

It is widely agreed that the DSM-IV categorical framework (and its predecessors) have a number of problems (e.g., questionable reliability in the field, questionable validity, heterogeneity, unexplained comorbidity, an unsound concept of mental disorder) that have compromised its utility in research concerning mental illness. At the root of these problems is a substantial “lack of fit” between the DSM framework and the domain of mental illness. With the publication of DSM-5, it is appropriate to ask whether the process of revision leading from DSM-IV to DSM-5 has been sufficiently responsive to the problems with DSM-IV to justify continued use of DSM categories in either basic research concerning psychopathology or more applied clinical research. In this paper, I argue that the revision process has not been responsive to these problems and that, hence, DSM-5 categories ought not to be used in research concerning mental illness. Rather, alternative approaches should be developed, and I conclude with a discussion of three such alternatives.