"Before addressing some of the possible shortcomings with the DSM, let's look at the benefits. A DSM diagnosis can: Help you make sense of your suffering. DSM categories break down distress into familiar patterns, making overwhelming feelings more understandable and easier to talk about. Reduce feelings of shame. You may feel relief when you realize that depression and anxiety are not personal flaws, but recognized medical conditions shared by millions."
"Identify a number of real biological disorders. Conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder clearly reflect underlying brain abnormalities. Accurate diagnosis and treatment are vital, and the DSM helps guide that process. Enable access to care. Insurance reimbursement often requires a DSM diagnosis. Without it, many people, especially lower-income individuals, would struggle to get therapy or medication."
"Support educational and workplace accommodations. Diagnoses such as ADHD or learning disorders make it easier to obtain extra time on tests, assignment flexibility, or workplace adjustments, so you don't need to "prove" the legitimacy of your struggles. Serve an important research function. DSM criteria allow scientists to characterize patient groups consistently. If I publish a study on a group of people with DSM-defined major depressive disorder, other researchers can replicate the design with a group of similar participants."
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) lists about 300 mental disorders and organizes human distress into diagnostic categories. DSM diagnoses help people make sense of suffering by breaking distress into recognizable patterns and easing communication about symptoms. Diagnoses can reduce shame by framing depression and anxiety as medical conditions rather than personal flaws. Certain disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder reflect underlying brain abnormalities requiring accurate diagnosis and treatment. A DSM diagnosis frequently enables insurance coverage, access to therapy or medication, and eligibility for educational or workplace accommodations like extra test time. Many DSM categories may describe ordinary painful emotions rather than identifiable brain pathology, raising concerns about over-medicalization.
Read at Psychology Today
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