Categorical Approach Essay

The use of the DSM through a categorical perspective of mental disorders is commonly endorsed in clinical practice, since the occurrence or lack of a specific trait significantly foreshadows the determination of treatment. The efficacy of categorisation is unbounded by clinicians; there is a use for psychiatric epidemiologists to document information about a lifetime prevalence of eating disorders, and those who are undergoing research find it practical to establish categorical response of treatment, even if statistics have demonstrated that eating disorder symptoms can occur as a continuum (Kessler, 2002). A categorical approach to assessing and conceptualising these disorders has countless key boundaries that affect diagnosis. Individuals

The use of a categorical perspective can contribute to a systematic underestimate of the importance in variations of evident symptoms and in underlying agencies in which different entities process their disorder. The extent of bulimia and anorexia nervosa symptoms vary in culture, age, and especially gender. The prominent differences may be ignored by using only a categorical approach. The dimensional varience of any disorder may be measured despite the symptoms of disorders are discontinues thus indicating an underlying clasification of EDNOS. When the DSM is enforced, there are patients that can be diagnosed with varying disorders along with the initial diagnosis (Maj, 2005). Individuals with both anorexia and anxiety as a result of being fat phobic may arguably be more correctly determined as possessing a mixed disorder. Patient with two diagnosed comorbid disorders would suggest that each disorder involves different categorisation and requires different mechanisms for treatments for each, when a more effective approach may be more