DSM-V – Somewhat arbitrary?
Earlier in the semester, I posted about the story of the creation of the DSM-IV classification system based on psychological characteristics. Today’s New York Times addresses the latest release, the DSM-V. It’s an ideal case study for classification themes we’ve reviewed all semester:
“In psychiatry no one knows the causes of anything, so classification can be driven by all sorts of factors” — political, social and financial.”
“What you have in the end,” Mr. Shorter said, “is this process of sorting the deck of symptoms into syndromes, and the outcome all depends on how the cards fall.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/health/18psych.html?hp
