Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)
The DSM is a diagnostic tool, published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and is utilized by both the psychiatric and psychological professions as an aid in the process of diagnosis.
The DSM is used as a standardized and centralized guide by mental health professionals, including clinicians, drug regulation agencies, and health insurance companies, among others, to classify and build actionable direction with respect to mental health disorders.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5)
The DSM-5 is the most recent update to the DSM, as of 2018, nearly 25 years after the fourth iteration in 1993.
Although fundamentally the same, the DSM-5 saw changes and updates to disorders such as Schizophrenia, Asperger’s, and depressive disorders, while including the likes of “binge eating disorder” and renaming “gender identity disorder” as “gender dysphoria,” among other notable changes.
The DSM-5 is the first version of the DSM to adopt the Arabic numeral at the end of its title over the traditional Roman numeral.
Ira Wohl’s “Clinical Diagnosis and the DSM-5” is a testimonial-driven look into real people affected by disorders outlined in the manual, in order to demonstrate clinical interviewing and how clinical information is used to formulate diagnoses.