(DSM-I): A Diagnostic Analysis

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-I) was published in 1952 by the American Psychiatric Association to define and classify mental disorders. It did not have much influence in classifying mental disorders during that time. Up until the late 1960s, when the system of nosology starts to have some real influence on mental health professionals, the American Psychiatric Association published DSM-II in 1968. DSM-I and DSM-II system lacked precise descriptions of the disorders and relied heavily on unproven and unpopular theories. Therefore, the third edition of the DSM was published in 1980 to make new reforms to its predecessors. One of the changes was more specific classification of the disorders and being more precise. For example, phobia

would be classified under the category “anxiety disorders” rather than “neurosis” (Durand, p. 85).
The second change in DSM-III was adding more details to the criteria for identifying the disorders. However, not all categories were completely reliable and valid. DSM-III R was revised in 1987 achieving good reliability and validity. The third change is rating the individual psychological disorders into five axis, which is called multiaxial. Mood disorder is listed on Axis I and chronic of personality is listed on Axis II. Axis III consists of any physical disorders and the amount of psychosocial stress is listed on Axis IV. Finally, adaptive functioning was listed on Axis V. This allows the clinicians to gather the information and have an idea of what each individual’s problem lie in.
The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) consist of diagnosis code that relates to health matter was published in 1993.

Then DSM-IV was published a year later in 1994 to make DSM and ICD more compatible. DSM-IV reanalyzes previous diagnostic system to find which one is useful to be used in DSM-IV. In addition, in DSM-IV, the multiaxial system of the previous edition was changed. Learning disorder, communication disorder and persuasive disorder used to be part of Axis II, but the fourth edition moved them to Axis I. The amount of psychosocial stress listed on Axis IV, was not useful therefore, reporting psychosocial and environmental problems replaced it. In 2000, the text revision of DSM-IV (DSM-IV-TR) helped clarify any issues related to the diagnosis of psychological disorders for readers. DSM-IV-TR used a categorical classification system that divides the mental disorders into types based on the

criteria.
After 10 years of effort by hundreds of international experts, DSM-5 was published in the spring of 2013.

Their dedication and hard work have been combined together in the new edition DSM-5 that defines and classifies mental disorder in order to improve treatment, diagnoses and research. DSM-5 has no greater changes from DSM-IV-TR. However, there are some new disorders introduced and reclassified. The multiaxial system has been removed in DSM-5 because Axis I, II and II have been combined into the descriptions of the disorders. DSM-5 approved the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is a self-report scale develop based on data. DSM-5 focuses to make better characterize symptoms for groups of people who are seeking for clinical help. These symptoms were not defined well in DSM-IV and are less likely to have access to the

treatments.
DSM-5 introduces cross cutting dimensional symptoms because the categories are failing to identify the symptom and not fitting into diagnostic criteria sets. Cross cutting dimensional symptoms are supposed to improve the categorical classification system.