Diagnosing the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders

Abstract

Reviews the book, Diagnosing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders by Rachel Cooper (2014). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association has been both a blessing and a curse. It was produced originally to serve as an instrument to aid researchers in trying to understand the panoply of emotional disorders that confront psychiatrists in their everyday work with patients. This was a laudable endeavor. Like so many such endeavors, however, it has evolved in directions that were hardly anticipated at the outset. For one thing, it has grown enormously, both in size and influence. In the penultimate chapter of the book, Cooper reports that in field trials carried out en route to the emergence of DSM-V, the standards for determining reliability of diagnoses made among mental health professionals slipped very far from those employed in previous versions of the DSM. The new standards seem shockingly poor to “many commentators” (p. 52). The discrepancy might be more apparent than real, however, she adds, since it can be difficult to compare new diagnostic entities and new field trial protocols with older ones. An informative contribution like Rachel Cooper’s Diagnosing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is very welcome indeed. It is well worth reading and studying, and she deserves our gratitude for having written it. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)